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GOLDEN DISHES 









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GOLDEN DISHES 


BY 

RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA 

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Author of 

“Stolen Honey” “Marsh Lightsetc. 


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BOSTON 

f| SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 4 

PUBLISHERS i| 


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Copyriciit, 1926 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(Incorporated) i 


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© Cl A883513 0 C» 

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Printed in the United States of America 


THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

THE BOSTON BOOKBINDINC COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

PlAR-6’26 / 













\\4> -ix 


TO LORNA 

HOPING SHE MAY LIKE IT 
ALTHOUGH THERE IS ONLY ONE PAIR OF 
BROWN EYES IN THE BOOK 




“Better a cracked plate with a 
crust on it than golden dishes 
with nothing between them.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 







GOLDEN DISHES 

CHAPTER ONE 

AMARIS PACKE crouched W the black 
fur rug in front of the library fire, hold¬ 
ing out cold hands to the blaze. It was 
as much mental as bodily chill which 
made her shiver, for the shadow of 
death lay upon the old square house which had 
once stood in the country, but about whose stout 
walls the stretching tentacles of London had now 
stolen. 

Isolated in its encircling garden Greystones stur¬ 
dily resisted the inevitable advance of Suburbia. 
Damaris often wished that it did not. It sometimes 
seemed to her that if she listened hard enough she 
could hear the sound of a wave of humanity from 
the sea of life beating against its high glass-crowned 
walls, seeking vainly for admission. 

Miss Charlotte Packe, her autocratic great-aunt, 
to whom in a moment of foolish impulse she con¬ 
fided this idea, had called it disgusting. 

“Wave of humanity, indeed. I’m surprised at you, 
Damaris. Much you’d enjoy a wave of humanity 
if it poured over you. The mere idea sickens me.” 

“It doesn’t sicken me, Aunt Charlotte. Life is 
life and has got to be lived. We can’t shut out 
people always.” 

“We shall as long as I am alive,” retorted Miss 
Packe, with a flicker of fire in the piercing black 

1 










2 


GOLDEN DISHES 


eyes which lent a surprising vitality to the wrinkled 
waxen-yellow face. 

And now Aunt Charlotte Packe lay dying upstairs 
in the great four-post bed out of which she had not 
slept for forty years. All her life long she had ruled 
those about her with a rod of iron. Now she wielded 
the sternest autocracy of all, the sceptre of one who 
is about to die. 

Over Damaris she had held almost undisputed 
sway ever since that black unforgettable day, eight¬ 
een years ago, when Miss Packe had swooped like 
an eagle upon the old house, Paraded, and borne the 
dazed child of fourteen away from the confusion 
and disorganization consequent upon the sudden 
deaths of its master and mistress. 

With a little shiver Damaris saw again the vision 
of her father’s rigid body being borne in from the 
hunting-field. In her ears still rang her mother’s 
cry of anguish. Like a bright ray across the dark¬ 
ness came a vivid memory of her step-brother, 
Roland Waring, whom she adored with all the pas¬ 
sion of a sensitive child: the comforting clasp of 
his hand, the solace of what they both called his 
“bear’s hugs.” 

But Roland, to whom her mother had left Para- 
dell (which had been her own property) had sold 
the old place and gone to study art in Paris. Roland, 
her hero, had married a girl student as poor as him¬ 
self, and now wandered through the world with the 
little daughter she had left him. 

Oh, if only she could buy back Paradell and make 
a home there for him and his child! But what would 
Ludlow say to that hidden dream of years? Damaris 
flushed rosily as she realized that for the moment 


GOLDEN DISHES 


3 


she had forgotten her lover, Ludlow Tempest. He 
was at the back of her thoughts always, colouring 
the grey monotony of her days. How was it that 
he had slipped into oblivion even for an instant? 

“My dearest! You know you’re always there— 
always!” she breathed in passionate apology, kiss¬ 
ing the gold signet ring which she wore in tacit 
defiance of Miss Packe’s disapproval. 

“No penniless scribblers for my niece,” the old 
lady had declared with spirit. “Come to me when 
you’ve earned enough to support a wife, young man, 
and we’ll begin to talk about things then. Till that 
day keep your distance.” 

Tempest would have urged Damaris there and 
then to throw in her lot with him had he not been 
painfully conscious that he was earning barely 
enough to support himself, much less a wife. Dam- 
aris’s father, Edgar Packe, had lost his all in dis¬ 
astrous speculation. Her mother had had nothing 
to bequeath except the encumbered acres of Para- 
dell, which naturally went to her son. 

“Altogether an impecunious crowd,” mused Dama¬ 
ris, her blue eyes fixed upon the orange flames that 
danced about the burning logs. “If only I could 
earn some money—but who would employ an un¬ 
trained woman of thirty-two? Oh, if only I had 
my youth over again, if only I had a little money of 
my own to enable me to train for something! As it 
is,” she shrugged her shoulders hopelessly, “I am 
that hideous thing, a penniless parasite. . . . No, 
no!” Pride made quick protest. “At least I earn 
my keep from Aunt Charlotte. No paid companion 
would do for her what I do, could give her what I 
give her. And now she’s dying. Leaving this dull, 


4 


GOLDEN DISHES 


comfortable life, and going—where? Out—some¬ 
where—alone.” 

The February twilight thickened without. The 
wind had risen and now whined uneasily about the 
old house. Damaris started as the door opened sud¬ 
denly behind her to admit Benson, the parlour-maid, 
whose white face, cap and apron gleamed against 
the darkness of the hall outside. 

“Postman’s just been, miss, and left this parcel for 
you.” She held out a flat packet. 

“For me, Benson?” Damaris’s tone quickened. 
Parcels by post rarely came her way. 

“Yes, miss. Shall I light the gas? It’s a bit 
earlier than usual, but it’s so dark tonight.” The 
girl’s face bore that curious look of excited appre¬ 
hension which is so often seen in the households 
of those who are about to die. 

“Please, Benson.” 

When the lights were lit and the curtains drawn 
Damaris drew a breath of relief. The commonplace 
action seemed to restore a fleeting sense of nor¬ 
mality. 

Eagerly she scanned the address. It was printed 
in small capitals. The stamps were Italian and 
bore a blurred postmark which she could not 
decipher. 

With an absurd sense of wrong-doing she cut the 
string . . . Aunt Charlotte always insisted upon 
the meticulous untying of every knot. . . . 

Her fingers trembled with excitement as she un¬ 
wrapped brown paper, tissue paper, a shielding 
length of cardboard, more tissue paper, and finally 
a water-colour drawing. 

It was a rough sketch of a young girl’s head. A 


l 


GOLDEN DISHES 


5 


great plait of tawny hair fell on either side of a 
squarish vivid little face, brown as a hazel-nut. 
Grey-green eyes set with a slight tilt asked an 
eternal question at which the widely curving red 
lips seemed to mock. Nature had adroitly set two 
brown moles as beauty-spots on the left cheek 
near eye and chin; yet withal the face was arrest¬ 
ing rather than beautiful, provocative rather than 
lovable. 

Damaris, gazing, did not know whether it at¬ 
tracted or repelled her, until her eyes fell on the 
legend—“Tory”—splashed in black letters across 
one corner. Then repulsion faded, quenched in a 
warm rush of feeling. 

“Tory! Little Victoria—Roland’s child! Some¬ 
how I had never pictured her like that! There’s 
something elfin, something of the woodland about 
her! She’s not a bit like Roland. She must take 
after her mother. What a pity! Roland is so 
handsome! Ah, there’s a letter.” 

With quickened pulses she stooped to pick up a 
folded paper from the floor. It bore neither address 
nor date, but plunged at once into the heart of the 
matter, as was Roland’s way. 

“Damaris, descendant of the importunate widow, 

“Here is the portrait of my Tory for which you 
have incessantly plagued me! It is one of half- 
a-dozen sketches I made for a proper picture of her, 
and is absurdly like the creature. I fear I’ve ideal¬ 
ized her nose a little, but what matter? You ask 
me why she never writes to you. It’s probably 
because she can’t spell. But what does that matter 
either? Spelling is a mere convention, after all, 
and when Tory is forced to it she does it hand- 


6 


GOLDEN DISHES 


somely. There is no skimpiness about my daugh¬ 
ter’s spelling. She is generous enough to add a 
handful of superfluous letters to most words, but 
I wouldn’t change her for the most perfect speller 
in the world. After many months of wandering, 
our shoes being irrevocably worn out, we have per¬ 
force halted in a chestnut wood on the side of Lake 
Mergozzo, a tiny gem set at the foot of the moun¬ 
tains that beam benignantly upon Lake Maggiore 
beyond. We both love roast chestnuts, fortunately, 
and when the summer comes the leaves ought to 
make us charming tunics, if a trifle prickly. Before 
then, though, I hope to have a picture in the Paris 
Salon, when Tory and I will crack a fiasco of the 
least sour Chianti we can find, and dance through 
the wood ‘with vine-leaves in our hair.’ Our shack 
is called the Villa Mariana, which is far too grand a 
name. Tory and I have christened it Villino Gobbo, 
which means Little Villa Hunchback, as one shoul¬ 
der is distinctly higher than the other and its left 
eye (or window if you prefer it) has a decided 
squint. 

“Tory would send you a kiss if she ever kissed 
anybody but me—which she doesn’t, and I send a 
bear’s hug—(do you remember the bear’s hugs at 
Paradell? Poor lost Paradell!) from the Villino 
Gobbo and your dauber brother, 

“Roland.” 

Damaris smiled, sighed and frowned as she read 
this epistle. 

“Madder than ever,” she murmured, “but dearer 
than ever too! Not a word of sense from beginning 
to end, but oh, how dreadfully poor they seem to be! 
How long is it since I heard from Roland? Over six 


GOLDEN DISHES 


7 


months. They were in Spain then, and sounded 
more opulent. What a life for a girl! If only I 
could help them! Tory—why, Tory must be six¬ 
teen. The very age when a girl most needs a woman 
near her. Would she let me love her, I wonder? I 
could love her, I do love her almost as much as 
Roland. Oh, if I could only buy back Paraded, how 
happy we could all be together there—Ludlow and 
I, and Roland and Tory!” 

For all her thirty-two years Damaris was still too 
unsophisticated to doubt the success of such a quix¬ 
otic scheme. The mossy walls of Greystones had 
narrowed her horizon mentally as well as physically. 
Yet even at the moment misgiving faintly touched 
her. 

“Well, why not?” she said defiantly. She rose 
and looked at her face in the big gilt-framed mirror 
which hung over the chimney-piece. Blue eyes 
looked back at her from a face incongruously young 
and rosy in its mist of silvery hair. Skin and com¬ 
plexion were clear and youthful still, but her hair 
had turned to its present greyness before she was 
twenty-one. 

There was something distinctly attractive in the 
bizarre combination: May and December in odd 
juxtaposition: but Damaris could not see it. 

Her thoughts swung back to her lover. 

“Why did he choose me?” she mused. “I wasn’t 
half as pretty as most of the girls at Mrs. Blaikie’s 
party.” 

Yet even on the thought she knew that beauty 
had had but little to do with their mutual attraction. 
She remembered the wild leap her heart had given 
as Tempest’s grey eyes looked into her blue ones, 


8 


GOLDEN DISHES 


the sudden knowledge that something inexplicable 
had happened, the excitement that thrilled her days, 
the glamour of the stolen meetings which had cul¬ 
minated in an engagement while yet the inner self 
of each was as a sealed book to the other. 

The door opened once more. Damaris started 
and swerved round from the mirror. It was Benson, 
again, pale and breathless this time. 

“Please, miss, the mistress is awake and the 
nurse says she would like to see you.” 

“Oh! . . . I’ll go immediately.” Fled were 
thoughts of brother and lover, swamped in the immi¬ 
nence of the contact from which every fibre of 
Damaris Packe shrank. 

Death, who had smitten the ruddy boisterousness 
of her kindly father to a cold and pallid silence, who 
had frozen her merry, laughing mother to the sem¬ 
blance of a beautiful statue; Death, the mysterious 
force, was coming here, to this warm familiar house; 
drawing nearer, nearer still, on swift relentless feet. 
And she had to face his coming once more, with all 
its bewildering pageantry, its grim and ghastly stag¬ 
ing. Aunt Charlotte—oh, she couldn’t, she couldn’t! 

Damaris covered her face with her hands, unheed¬ 
ing Benson’s frankly curious gaze, fighting with all 
her might against old recurrent terrors. In a mo¬ 
ment she had got grip of herself again, but when she 
uncovered her face it was completely drained of 
colour. 

“Lor, miss, don’t take on so,” cried Benson, on a 
kindly impulse. “It’s natural for the old to go. It’s 
only-” 

But Damaris had left the room while still she had 
the power to move her reluctant limbs. 



CHAPTER TWO 



ISS PACKE was no sloven. Even in 
the face of Death she insisted upon pre¬ 
senting as good a front to the world she 
was leaving as she had done throughout 
a long monotonous life. Lace lappets 
framed a face as yellow as they, falling richly 
upon the purple satin wrapper which enfolded the 
shrunken frame. Some fine diamonds flashed upon 
the clawlike hands with which she motioned to 
Damaris. 

“Come here, Damaris. I’m not going to bite you 
even if I am dying,” piped a thin voice from the 
great bed. “Give me some cordial, nurse. I want 
to speak to my great-niece.” 

The neat-capped nurse moved forward and half 
filled a medicine-glass with a deep red liquid. Even 
as such trivialities will seize upon the mind at in¬ 
appropriate moments Damaris could not help notic¬ 
ing the colour effect of the crimson cordial and the 
purple gown against the white pillows gleaming from 
the dusk of the canopied bed, which looked cavern¬ 
ous in the shaded light of the sick-room. 

Miss Packe sipped from the medicine-glass, and 
closed her eyes as the nurse wiped her lips with a 
fine lawn handkerchief. 

To Damaris it seemed as if the light of her Aunt 
Charlotte’s life had been blown out. The wrinkled 
face on the pillow looked like a death-mask. Con- 
9 










10 


GOLDEN DISHES 


flicting emotions warred within her: pity, sadness, 
unreasoning terror. 

The black eyes opened suddenly, bringing life 
back to the waxen face. It was Aunt Charlotte once 
more, as she had been for many months. Damaris 
felt her tremors subside. 

“You must have got your hair from your mother’s 
family,” said Miss Packe for about the one hun¬ 
dredth time. “No Packe ever turned grey at one- 
and-twenty.” 

“No, Aunt Charlotte,” returned Damaris with the 
patience of years. The familiar lapped about her 
soothingly. She wondered how she could have been 
so foolish. 

“Go away, nurse. Drat the woman, why doesn’t 
she go when I tell her?” Already the old voice rang 
stronger. 

“I’m going, Miss Packe. I only waited to make 
up the fire.” The nurse, hastily summoned on the 
previous evening, felt no human bond between her 
and her troublesome case. She went swiftly out 
of the room, closing the door behind her. 

“Is that door shut?” 

“Yes, Aunt Charlotte.” 

“Good. I want no pryers and peepers.” Miss 
Packe looked at her great-niece with a glint of tri¬ 
umph in her black eyes. “Damaris, did you ever 
want to be rich?” 

Damaris started. Had Aunt Charlotte uncannily 
read her thoughts? 

“Yes, Aunt Charlotte,” she admitted, reddening. 

“Why? But you needn’t answer. I know you 
want to marry your penniless scribbler and support 
that worthless step-brother of yours.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 11 

Indignant retort sprang to the girl’s lips, but she 
checked it to a milder: “Roland isn’t worthless.” 

“What good has he ever done? Painted a few 
daubs that no one wants to buy, written to you once 
in a way when the mood took him, and left you for 
months without a letter when he was too self- 
absorbed to write to you! Much he cares for you!” 

There was sufficient truth in this indictment to 
have stung Damaris at another time, but now she 
was armoured against Miss Packe’s thrusts by 
Roland’s letter. . . . He had written. He had 
remembered her desire for Tory’s portrait. He had 
even gone to the trouble of painting it for her. He 
did care. . . . She answered only with a smile, whose 
confidence pricked the old woman to a sudden un¬ 
easiness. 

“Damaris,” she said quickly, “I’m a richer woman 
than you imagine. I’ve left all my money to you.” 

Colour flooded Damaris’s face from brow to chin. 
She gasped in amazement. 

“Oh, Aunt Charlotte!” 

How stupid she was! She seemed capable only 
of repeating her great-aunt’s name! But Miss 
Packe had never encouraged individuality. Ac¬ 
quiescence was all she had ever demanded of 
Damaris. She neither knew nor cared anything 
about the girl’s inner life, the secret mental proc¬ 
esses which went on beneath the surface of her 
hardly acquired calm. Miss Packe belonged to that 
old-fashioned school which believes that what is 
ignored does not exist. 

She spoke again on a sharpened note. 

“I’ve made you my heiress conditionally. Unless 
you do what I want you shan’t have a penny.” 


12 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“What do you want me to do?” asked Damaris, 
trying to keep her voice from trembling. 

A vision of Paraded, restored, renewed, filled with 
happy faces and quickened to life by the sound 
of happy voices, of young dancing feet, flitted across 
her bewildered mind. Was it possible that her wild 
dream could really come true? Did such things ever 
happen? 

“Only to promise to stay with me to the end and 
not to marry that pauper Tempest while I have 
breath in my body.” 

“How could you think I would leave you?” 
Damaris began reproachfully. 

“Girls do queer things for love of men. I’ll make 
it worth your while to stay.” 

“I won’t bargain like this,” Damaris thrust in, 
hot and shamed. “It’s unnatural, indecent. I don’t 
want your money, Aunt Charlotte.” 

“Nonsense! every one wants money. You can’t 
pretend that you haven’t been counting on mine.” 

“I haven’t been counting. I never even knew that 
you were rich. I did hope that you might leave me 
.a little, but-” 

She stopped, filled with a sudden choking distaste 
for the whole scene. 

“Of course you did. So did Tempest. Very 
natural, too. Well, all I possess shall be yours on 
that one condition. Promise me that you will stay 
with me till I die, Damaris, and that you won’t 
marry Tempest until I’ve gone. Why do you hesi¬ 
tate? Come. Give me your word.” 

Silence fell in response to this appeal, which was 
more like a command: a silence which grew heavy 
and sharp-edged as Damaris twisted her fingers to- 



GOLDEN DISHES 


13 


gether nervously and strove for words which would 
not come. Her unexpected outburst seemed to have 
drained her of speech. 

“I am waiting for your promise, Damans.” 

Was it a note of fear that struck shrilly through 
the quavering voice? It was a reasonable request 
enough, but some blind instinct checked the words 
that trembled on Damaris’s lips. . . . Aunt Char¬ 
lotte had been ill before. Supposing that she did not 
die this time. . . . Supposing that she lived on for 
years, binding her to another long period of bond¬ 
age? Could she stand it? She felt nearly at her 
tether’s end. . . .Yet how could she bargain with a 
dying woman? How could she say in actual words 
—“If you promise to die soon I’ll stay, if you don’t 
I won’t”? It would be brutal, heartless: yet that 
was her thought, starkly visible. 

“It can’t be long now, Damaris.” Again the old 
woman seemed to read her thoughts. “I’m eighty- 
three. The money will soon be yours. Then you 
can marry your scrubby journalist and fill your 
scapegrace painter’s gaping pockets. . . . My God, 
I grudge my carefully gathered money going like 
that! . . . But you shall have it, Damaris, to do 
what you like with. No restriction but the one.” 

Damaris hesitated: shrinking, yet feeling, despite 
her distaste, the lure of her unfulfilled dream. 

Suddenly Miss Packe’s bony fingers shot out and 
clutched her wrist with a grip that tightened pain¬ 
fully. Her voice wheezed and broke, rising to a 
shrill scream. 

“Damaris, don’t leave me! I’m old. I’m fright¬ 
ened. I’m afraid to die alone. Don’t leave me. 
Don’t leave me.” 


14 


GOLDEN DISHES 


All the curbed womanhood in Damaris rose at the 
appeal. She put warm arms round the old woman’s 
trembling body. . . . How small, how frail it felt! 
A mere skeleton already. 

“Dear Aunt Charlotte, you mustn’t be frightened. 
Of course I’ll stay. Just as long as you want me. 
I never thought of deserting you. Of course I won’t 
leave you.” She soothed her as one would a child, 
seeing, in truth, but little difference between these 
two extremes of life, infancy and old age. 

Miss Packe clung to her with extraordinary 
vitality. 

“You’ll stay to the end? You won’t run away 
and marry Tempest? Promise, Damaris.” 

“I promise.” 

“On your word of honour?” 

“On my word of honour.” 

Miss Packe gave a sigh that shook her whole 
frame as she relaxed her grip. Damaris laid her 
gently back on her pillows. 

“No Packe ever broke his word,” she breathed. 

“I shall not break mine, Aunt Charlotte.” 

“Whatever happens?” 

“Whatever happens.” 

“I shan’t break mine either. You shall have the 
money.” 

“It wasn’t for the money I promised.” 

“No? Perhaps not altogether. You’ve been a 
good girl on the whole, though much too like your 
mother to please me. Tell that nurse-woman that 
I’ve gone to sleep. I hate to have her poking round. 
Don’t go far away. I may want you again at any 
moment.” Once more Miss Packe’s eyes brightened 
and flickered with the fear of death. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


15 


“Let me stay with you now.” 

“No, no. I’ll send for you when I want you. Go 
downstairs and do something useful. There are 
those Dorcas things to be finished.” 

“Very well, Aunt Charlotte.” 

Damaris went quietly out of the room. The nurse 
stood by the window on the landing. She turned 
when she heard the opening of the door. 

“Miss Packe bad?” she asked perfunctorily. 

“No. She wants to sleep. Do you think—is there 
—will she?” Damaris stumbled for a phrase that 
would not sound too crude. She need not have 
troubled. Custom had robbed the nurse of any use 
for nuances. 

“You never can tell when they’re as old as that. 
She may linger on for quite a while. On the other 
hand she may go off at any moment.” 

Damaris shivered as she went towards the stairs. 
Death was a commonplace to the other woman. 
What was the meaning of it all? Why the beginning 
if this were to be the end? She thought of Miss 
Packe’s long withered life, a succession of dry, sap¬ 
less days, her capacity for joy or sorrow outlived, 
her one emotion fear. What good had her money 
been to her? What colour had it brought into her 
life or any others? Oh, if it were hers —when it was 
hers—Damaris thought, what joy she would make 
it bring to those she loved best! 

Once more she saw the mirage of Paraded in the 
wood, where she and Ludlow, Roland and Tory 
would build up a beautiful happy life together, after 
all these lean years of separation and poverty. 


CHAPTER THREE 



E stairs took a sharp turn to the right. 
As Damaris rounded the angle she came 
face to face with Benson, who was 
hurrying towards her, eager, excited. 

“A gentleman to see you, miss.” 

“To see me, Benson?” This was a day of hap¬ 
penings for Damaris Packe. 

“Yes, miss. Mr. Tempest, miss. I put him in 
the library as there was no fire in the drawing¬ 
room.” 

“Quite right.” 

Damaris quickened her steps. What had brought 
Ludlow here tonight of all nights? He had not 
crossed the threshold of Greys tones since the day 
Miss Packe had practically forbidden him the house. 
Had he heard of the old lady’s sudden illness, and 
come to give her the comfort of his presence? The 
age of miracles was not yet past. Anything might 
happen upon this incredible day. 

As she paused with her hand on the handle of the 
library door she felt as if to see him so soon would 
be almost more than she could bear. Then she went 
quietly into the room. 

To the lean black-haired man, who stood on the 
hearth-rug with Tory Waring’s picture in his hand, 
she had never looked more beautiful, more desirable. 
The paling of her roses, the faint purple shadows 
beneath her eyes added but a touch of pathos to the 
appeal she had held for him from the very first. The 
real Damaris he scarcely knew, but he was not aware 
16 






GOLDEN DISHES 


17 


of this. For him she had some subtle exquisite 
charm which set her above and apart from the 
ordinary woman. 

He flung the sketch on a table and came towards 
her. 

“Damaris! My dearest!” 

She was in his arms, crushed against him so closely 
that it almost hurt. He tilted her chin, and looking 
down at her with a smile of triumph kissed her soft 
lips with a new passion. 

Damaris, unprepared, felt a little frightened, a 
little jarred. She was tired, unnerved. Life and 
love seemed a trifle over-exuberant in the hush of 
Death’s coming. She held herself back from her 
lover, leaning against the bar of his clasping arms 
with a strange sensation, half uneasiness, half 
security. 

“Ludlow! What is it, dear? No more bad news?” 

He sobered instantly. “More bad news? Why, 
what has happened?” 

“Aunt Charlotte is very ill.” 

He made an impatient movement. “She has been 
ill before. Don’t let us think about her now. Let 
me tell you what brought me here tonight.” 

“Do. I’m longing to hear.” She felt that perhaps 
she had been lacking in sympathy and tried to 
quicken her tones. ... If only she did not feel so 
stupidly, dreadfully tired! . . . What was it that 
Ludlow was saying? . . . How young he looked with 
his hair rumpled up like that! She touched it with 
a tender hand. 

“. . .So Burnett has given me the com¬ 
mission to do these articles on ‘World Unrest’ for 
the London Weekly , and as it means at least France, 


18 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Italy, Belgium and Spain I thought what a perfect 
honeymoon trip it would make.” 

“Honeymoon trip!” Damaris echoed. “But, Lud¬ 
low-” 

“But, Damaris!” He mocked her gently, taking 
her face between his hands and swaying it from 
side to side. “Isn’t it a topping idea? All my 
expenses are to be paid and I’m to get ten of the 
very best Bradbury’s for each article, which 
ought to pay yours and a bit over. The Registrar 
Johnny said he could give me a license in twenty- 
four hours, so there is nothing in the world to pre¬ 
vent us from getting married at once!” 

“Married at once! Ludlow, boy, what a heavenly 
idea!” She forgot Aunt Charlotte for an instant in 
the ecstasy of the thought. 

“Yes, isn’t it? Mrs. Tempest. Damaris Tem¬ 
pest! Sounds rather good, doesn’t it?” 

“The Tempests of Paradell. . . . Ludlow Tem¬ 
pest, the famous author, photographed in the rose- 
garden at Paraded. ... By the lily-pond at Para¬ 
ded. . . . In the beech-tunnel at Paraded-. Only 

you’d have to be looking out through one of the 
openings! ” 

Words tumbled hotfoot from Damaris’s thronging 
thoughts. Her eyes shone. Her cheeks glowed. 

“Sounds ad right, but why Paraded? What and 
where is Paraded?” 

“Paraded-! ” The dream dissolved into a rain¬ 

bow mist as Damaris came back to earth again. 
“Paraded is the house where I was born, where I 
lived until I came here—my mother’s house in the 
New Forest. I want to buy it back, and live there 
with you and Roland and Tory.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


19 


Tempest’s look grew quizzical. “Rather a tall 
order, isn’t it? Anything else? Roland’s your step¬ 
brother, I remember. But who’s Tory?” 

“This is Tory.” Damaris slipped from his clasp 
and held up the sketch. “Roland’s child.” 

“Oh, that’s Tory, is it? ... An attractive little 
Pagan, I should say, by the look of her, but rather 
a disturbing addition to a person’s household, I 
should fancy. We could have them to stay if you 
liked when we’ve saved enough money to make your 
dreams come true, but to have them to live with 

us altogether-” His strongly marked black 

brows rose questioningly. “However, we needn’t 
worry about that yet, darling. We’ve got to get to 
Spain first, before we can build any castles there.” 

“No, Ludlow. Listen. Sit down beside me on the 
couch and let us talk sense. It’s not such a castle 
in Spain as you imagine, for—oh, it sounds horrible 
to talk of it, but I must tell you. Aunt Charlotte 
told me just now that she is a richer woman than 
I imagined and that she is going to leave all her 
money to me!” 

Tempest pursed his lips for a soundless whistle. 
“I say! . . . How rich did you imagine her, 
Damaris?” 

“I never thought much about it,” said Damaris 
frankly. “We live comfortably enough here, but 
Aunt Charlotte is always awfully economical about 
things like matches, and bits of string, and bread- 
puddings, and not having the gas lit till a certain 
hour. Ludlow—I wonder if she could have five 
hundred a year?” 

“That doesn’t go very far nowadays. No. I 
should say she must have nearer to a thousand. It’s 


20 


GOLDEN DISHES 


jolly decent of the old lady. A solid thousand a 

year-!” The whistle came out at last. “I say, 

sweetheart, we’ll send her the best mantilla we can 
buy in Madrid!” 

Damaris flushed suddenly. “Oh, but, dearest, we 
can’t be married just yet.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because—because—I wish it didn’t sound so 
sordid—because she won’t leave us the money if we 
do.” 

“What do you mean?” Tempest’s tone hardened. 

Damaris looked pleadingly at him. . . . How 
baldly, how stupidly she was putting things! 
Couldn’t he understand? Why did he look so—so 
unreceptive? 

“She told me that she would leave me the money 
on condition-” Damaris faltered to a crimson con¬ 

fusion—“on condition that I stayed with her until 
she died, and didn’t—didn’t marry you as long as 
she lived. . . . Ludlow!” She cried out in anguish 
at sight of his face. 

Tempest edged away from her, stiffening per¬ 
ceptibly. 

“So you’ve sold me for her money!” he said in a 
tone that cut. “I didn’t think it of you, Damaris.” 

“No, no. I didn’t. You mustn’t say such things. 
It seemed an easy enough thing to promise. There 
was no chance of my marrying you at present. We 
have all our lives before us. The money—oh, it 
seems hateful to plan like this with Death on the 
very threshold—but it can’t be long now, Ludlow. 
The nurse says-” 

“I don’t want to hear what the nurse says. What 
you’ve said has been quite enough.” 




GOLDEN DISHES 


21 


“Why do you look at me like that?” 

“I’m wondering if I ever really knew you,” he 
answered slowly. Was this his dear fastidious 
Damaris? This mercenary- 

“I warned you long ago not to idealize me,” cried 
Damaris wildly. “I’m only a very ordinary woman, 
full of flaws and faults. You mustn’t think I want 
the money for myself. I only want it for you, for 
Roland-” 

“Cut me out, then. I don’t want any money that 
I can’t earn for myself.” 

“How hard you are!” She, too, looked at a new 
Ludlow. It was the first time their temperaments 
had really clashed: the first time they had ever 
probed beneath the surface of their normal daylight 
selves. 

Tempest softened a little. “I’m not hard, really. 
Try me, Damaris.” He smiled into her appealing 
eyes. “Marry me tomorrow and prove that you 
really love me.” 

“Of course I love you, but I can’t. Don’t you 
see that I can’t?” 

“Why not?” 

“Apart from the wretched money, I’ve promised 
Aunt Charlotte to stay with her to the end. She’s 
old, my dear one, she’s lonely, she’s frightened at 
the thought of dying. She has been good to me in 
her own queer way. Don’t you see that I can’t 
desert her now when she clings to me? It isn’t that 
I don’t want to go to you. If only I could square 
my conscience I’d leave the house and never set foot 
in it again. I shrink from the very thought of death. 
It brings back old things, terrifying things.” Her 
voice shook. “But I’ve given her my word and 




22 


GOLDEN DISHES 


I can’t break it. My whole life will be yours once 
—once-” 

“Once you’ve got your beastly money? No, 
thanks. I’ve no use for a rich wife. I don’t want 
to live on any woman’s bounty—even yours! ” 

“Even mine?” echoed Damaris. “If you really 
cared, money couldn’t matter.” 

“If you really cared, you’d chuck the money and 
marry me tomorrow as I ask you.” 

“Do you really ask me to do that, Ludlow?” Her 
eyes searched his face as she sat sideways on the 
hard, old-fashioned leather couch, her hands tightly 
clasped in her lap to still their trembling. 

Tempest paused, uncomfortably aware of a new 
self as well as of a strange new Damaris. Was it 
altogether distaste for her not unreasonable desire 
for Miss Packe’s money which moved him, or was 
there a faint surging jealousy of the step-brother 
whose claims his sweetheart dared to put on a level 
with his own? Ludlow Tempest was a more primi¬ 
tive man than he imagined, but hitherto the cir¬ 
cumstances of his life had done nothing to arouse 
the strength of his dormant emotions. For an 
astonished moment he felt that he wanted to snatch 
up his woman, carry her off and beat her, if neces¬ 
sary, into subjection. Then, with a swift shamed 
reaction, he felt as if he could fall on his knees 
beside her, put his head on her lap, and beg of her 
to love him, to be kind to him. That mood passed 
as quickly as it had come. He realized that they 
had suddenly plunged into a crisis. Damaris must 
be mastered if they were to know happiness in 
after-life. It should be easy enough. She had 
always been gentle, yielding. He set his mouth to 



GOLDEN DISHES 


23 


resistance. The money could go hang, for all he 
cared. If her love for him were no stronger than 
that- 

“I do ask it,” he answered suddenly. 

“Be reasonable, Ludlow,” she pleaded. “I’d marry 
you tomorrow and come straight back and tell Aunt 
Charlotte if—if it weren’t for Roland.” 

“For Roland?” Jealousy leaped, giant-strong, 
upon Tempest. “You place him, then, before 
me?” 

“No, no, no, of course not. How could you think 
it, my own, my very dearest? But he was always so 
good to me. I love him. I can’t bear to think of 
him as being poor and struggling, perhaps hungry, 
when by a little self-sacrifice I could at least put 
him beyond the reach of want. His little girl, too 
—oh, do, do be reasonable, Ludlow. Don’t let this 
thing come between us.” 

“It has come between us already. Our only chance 
is to chuck the wretched money once for all.” Tem¬ 
pest’s tone was grim. 

“But I’ve promised Aunt Charlotte. You wouldn’t 
have me break my word to a poor dying old woman?” 

“Not if I didn’t think you were influenced by this 
beastly money. Can you honestly tell me you are 
not?” 

“No. . . . I do want the money, but it wasn’t 
for that I promised. Oh, it’s all so tangled, so 
confused! ” She hid her face in her hands. She could 
not bear to look at the unfamiliar, implacable mask 
which concealed her lover from her. They had sud¬ 
denly swerved so far apart that it seemed as if 
they were not even talking the same language now. 
If only Tempest had taken her in his arms, if only 



24 


GOLDEN DISHES 

Damaris had shown any sign of yielding, all might 
yet have been well between them; but she, in her 
ignorance of the world of men, made no allowance 
for the bitterness of this sudden frustration of her 
lover’s hopes; while he, in the exasperation of his 
disappointment, saw her as some smooth little rock 
against which the waves of his urgency might batter 
in vain. 

He rose. She looked up in quick alarm. Was he 
leaving her with all this confusion, this misunder¬ 
standing between them? She sprang to her feet and 
put a detaining hand on his arm. 

. “You can’t go like this, Ludlow.” 

“There doesn’t seem to be much use in my stay¬ 
ing. If you won’t do what I ask you-” 

“But what you ask is so senseless, so unreason¬ 
able,” Damaris protested hotly. 

“Is it unreasonable for a man to wish to test the 
love of the woman he wants to marry?” 

“Why should you want to test my love like that?” 

“Because, for the first time, I have reason to 
believe it isn’t flawless!” 

“Ludlow! ” It was the cry of one deeply wounded. 

“I’m sorry if you think me a brute, Damaris, but 
we seem suddenly to have left the flowery surface of 
things and got down to bedrock.” The line of 
Tempest’s jaw hardened. “It’s better to get at the 
truth, even if it hurts. The truth of this is that you 
seem to rank many things above your love for 
me, and I don’t want to marry any woman who does 
that.” 

“What tilings?” Damaris breathed. 

“Miss Packe’s money. Your step-brother’s wel¬ 
fare. Your own word.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 25 

“You put the other two first, yet the last is the 
only one that could really count.” 

“Prove it, then. Marry me tomorrow, and you 
can come back and stay with the old woman until 
she dies.” 

“But, if you are content to let me stay, doesn’t 
it seem mad to throw away all that money?” There 
was little of self in her regret. A vision of Roland’s 
poverty, of his spoilt, uneducated child, tinged her 
tone with a disappointment which only further in¬ 
censed Tempest. 

“No, it’s the only sane thing to do, as I see it.” 

“Nonsense, Ludlow.” Her tone sharpened to 
exasperation. 

“It isn’t nonsense.” He watched her changing 
face with a ruthless keenness. ... If her dreams 
were at stake so were his. Already his ideal Dam- 
aris seemed to be slipping from his grasp. Was he 
to lose the real woman as well? If she cared more 

for her brother, put him first- She did, with 

humiliating directness. 

“But Roland . . . Paraded ...” Reluctance 
trailed the words to a devastating silence. 

Tempest moved abruptly to the fireplace and 
leaned against the chimney-piece, seeing his dreams 
vanish in the flames. 

She had made her choice. Money and the wastrel 
brother. Her love for him had meant but little if 
she could thrust him thus definitely into second 
place. He was not the man to accept a divided 
allegiance. He did not realize how much of his 
pain was caused by the wound to his pride. He 
would have been loth to admit that it was the 
primitive man in him which demanded such abso- 



26 


GOLDEN DISHES 


lute possession of his woman: that, as yet, he had 
mastered no more than the mere Alphabet of Love, 
whose vocabulary held no such word as Communism 
for him. Autocracy was the symbol he would fain 
have fashioned with the letters at his command, 
allocating to himself the sceptre which only the god 
may wield. 

“I see you’ve chosen,” he said at last, without 
looking round. 

“What do you mean?” cried Damaris, startled. 

“I mean that you’re not the woman I thought 
you,” Tempest answered heavily. 

“Nor you the man I hoped you,” she flashed, 
stung to reproach. 

“It seems, then, that we’ve both made a mistake.” 
He moved awkwardly, still with his back to her. 
“We should be thankful that it is not too late to 
rectify it.” 

Damaris stared at him with frightened blue eyes. 

“Ludlow! Look at me. Tell me what you mean. 
You must look at me.” 

He turned slowly. Their eyes met as they had 
never met before, without love, appraisingly, accus¬ 
ingly. Jealousy spurred him. 

“I mean that if neither of us is what the other 
thought, it is better for us to part now than run 
the risk of marrying strangers.” 

Marrying strangers? Was that what it had come 
to? Was the love which had seemed so beautiful 
but a mirage after all? . . . Yet if it came to that, 
did any one human being ever really know another 
human being? Was not half mankind stranger to 
the other half? . . . The warm quiet room sud¬ 
denly spun for Damaris. She put her hand on the 


GOLDEN DISHES 


27 


high curved end of the couch to steady herself. She 
heard nothing of appeal in the constraint of Tem¬ 
pest’s tone: nothing but a cold finality. Even his 
voice had grown unfamiliar. Well, if he didn’t want 
her. . . . The Packe pride came to her rescue. 

“If we have made a mistake it is certainly better 
to find it out before ’tis too late,” she said with a 
quietude that matched his own. She drew off his 
signet ring. Her hand was steady as she held it 
towards him. She felt as if she were going through 
some horrible nightmare from which she must soon 
awaken. “You’d like this back?” 

“Thanks.” He slipped it on the little finger of 
his left hand, from which he had taken it to give 
her. 

Damaris wanted to snatch it back. Its very touch 
had brought comfort. But pride still held her. He 
had hurt her cruelly. If he were capable of doing 
that now- She couldn’t force herself on him- 

“Good-bye.” Tempest held out his hand. 

She searched his face for sign of softening, but 
found none. It was still like a mask, set and rigid. 

“Good-bye.” 

He wrung her hand and dropped it. 

The library door clicked. The hall door shut 
with a clap that echoed through the silent house. 

It was all over, baldly, prosaically. No least touch 
of beauty in the ending of what had once seemed 
so incredibly lovely. Could such things be? 

Damaris sank on to the rug before the fire, and 
looked with unseeing eyes at the purring, leaping 
flames, as she had done—was it only an hour or 
two ago? It seemed impossible: for it is difficult for 
the young to realize that the “inevitable and noise- 




28 


GOLDEN DISHES 


less foot of Time” neither hastens nor tarries for 
human grief or joy. 

Her world had clattered about her ears. She 
sat there, numbed with the noise of its falling, until 
Benson, momentarily the messenger of the gods, 
once more disturbed her solitude. 

“The mistress is awake and asking for you, Miss 
Damaris.” 

Damaris started up and looked round her with 
dazed eyes. Life was going on just the same as 
ever although the unbelievable had happened! With 
an effort she jerked back her mind to the normal. 

“Is she worse, Benson?” 

“The nurse didn’t say, miss.” 

Damaris went upstairs with lagging steps. 

In the sick-room all was unchanged, save that 
Miss Packe peered from her cavern bed with 
brighter eyes. 

“Who banged the door just now?” she demanded. 

It did not occur to Damaris to temporize. 

“Ludlow Tempest,” she answered dully. 

“What brought him here at this hour of the 
night?” 

“He—came to say good-bye. He—he is going 
abroad for a time on a commission for his paper.” 
Damaris heard a far-off voice giving these details. 

Miss Packe’s eyes darted to the now ringless hand. 
Her eyelids quivered, but she made no comment, 
conscious as she was of the nurse’s openly curious 
gaze. 

“I don’t think I’m going to die just yet, Damaris,” 
she said, with a grim attempt at a chuckle. “I want 
you to get out my last summer’s bonnet and take 
the white feather to be dyed a nice rich purple. As 


GOLDEN DISHES 


29 


I can’t die myself I may as well dye my feather!” 

Never had a feeble pun so flattering a reception, 
for at the ironic bathos of such an ending to her 
day’s tragedy Damaris went into peal after peal of 
hysterical laughter. 

“It’s too funny! Too, too funny,” she gasped, 
until a sharp ejaculation from Miss Packe pulled 
her back to a sense of her renewed bondage. 

The door had stood open for a moment, but it was 
she herself who had slammed it in her own face. 
She was conscious of the nurse holding to her lips 
some liquid whose fumes half-choked her. 

“Drink this. It will pull you together.” 

Damaris drank and was grateful. It was dis¬ 
integrating to lose control like this. 

“You’ll get the money soon enough,” said a voice 
from the bed. 

“Aunt Charlotte! I wasn’t thinking of the 
money!” Damaris cried. “I don’t want it at all 
if you think like that of me!” 

“Don’t be a fool!” said Miss Packe. 


CHAPTER FOUR 



AMARIS PACKE, wrought up to the 
tension of a crisis, suffered proportion¬ 
ately from the flatness of its anticlimax. 

No days ever seemed so long or so 
dull as those which followed Miss 
Packe’s rally: no hours so empty or monotonous. 
It took her nearly a week to sacrifice her pride suffi¬ 
ciently to write to Ludlow Tempest, and then she 
tore up half-a-dozen letters before she posted the 
rather piteous little sheet whose burden was, “I 
do love you best, my own man.” 

If Tempest had ever received the letter its tender 
humility might well have pierced the armour of his 
hurt pride, but in his haste to cut adrift from the 
known and embark upon his new adventure, he 
had packed up at once and quitted his dingy lodg¬ 
ings without leaving an address behind. Therefore, 
after three interminable weeks, during which every 
footstep quickened Damaris’s pulses and every 
knock at the door made her heart leap and brought 
the blood to her cheeks, her little olive-branch came 
back through the Dead Letter Office, in a mean 
yellowish envelope familiarly addressed to “Damaris, 
Greystones, Streatham.” 

It was humiliating to think that any eyes other 
than Tempest’s should have looked upon such a 
purely private and personal letter, but even more 
humiliating to realize that her lover had deliberately 
opened so deep a chasm of silence between them. 

30 









GOLDEN DISHES 


31 


Damans hid her wound as best she could, but 
there was nothing to restore any colour or meaning 
to life. Ludlow did not want her. Aunt Charlotte 
was as well as she had been for months past. 

Those were the two salient facts in her present 
existence. There was no possibility of evading 
them. 

She bore Miss Packe no grudge for so inconsider¬ 
ately clinging to life. It did not really matter how 
long the old lady lingered now. Once she got rid of 
the nurse her insistent need of Damaris vaguely 
soothed the hurt which Tempest had inflicted. Aunt 
Charlotte was apparently the only person in the 
world who really wanted her, and her sore, lonely 
heart cried out to be wanted. 

Roland, for the moment, was affluent. A jubilant 
letter told her that his picture for the Salon had not 
only been accepted and hung, but was actually sold 
to a rich American, who apparently bought pictures 
as he might buy socks—by the dozen. 

“The Philistine wants me to paint him another 
—five feet by three. As if you could clip the wings 
of Art as you would those of a fowl! The simile is 
induced by our recent feast of celebration, which ran 
to a roast chicken and a bottle of Capri. I’ve flung 
back his order in his golden teeth. Am I his vassal 
that I should desecrate my Art by filling gaps in his 
filthy walls? At the present moment I am painting 
the soul of the little divine Mergozzo in a series of 

impressions-” (“Which probably no one will ever 

want to buy!” sighed Damaris.) 

“Tory, my pixy child, declares that only she and 
I can really appreciate them. She is now trying to 
persuade Benedetto, the charcoal-burner, to stop 



32 


GOLDEN DISHES 


beating his wife! But Benedetto roundly declares 
that Assunta likes it, and that she would think 
he had ceased to love her if he let her alone!” 

A sudden sting of desire pricked Damaris as she 
read. She was sitting under the big pear tree in 
the garden, round whose gnarled trunk ran a green 
wooden bench. She put the letter down on her lap 
and looked across the clipped lawn and bright con¬ 
ventional flower-beds with unseeing eyes. 

How care-free, how alive, how preposterously gay 
they sounded! . . . The idea of a child like Tory 
tackling a strange man on such a subject! What a 
life for a young girl! How could Roland let her?- 

But it was life at any rate, while her present 
existence was no better than stagnation. Roland 
was ridiculous, of course, with his ideas about money. 
Why couldn’t he be sensible and accept that Ameri¬ 
can’s commission, as Ludlow had accepted the 
London Weekly’s commission for his series of 
articles on “World Unrest.” It was no more clip¬ 
ping the wings of one Art than of the other, and one 
must live. 

How different they were, these two men whom she 
loved so dearly! . . . On the thought came swift 
denial. No, they were not so different after all, 
in their foolish, manlike disregard of money. One 
was just as absurd, just as unreasonable as the other. 
But Roland was, like a child, an irresponsible being. 
He had to be looked after, to be helped to the cap¬ 
turing of his visions. Ludlow was hard, masterful. 
There was no more of the child in him than is hid¬ 
den deep in the heart of any man who walks the 
earth. He would not let her help him. He did not 
want her. . . . But some day she would help Roland, 



GOLDEN DISHES 


33 


give him space, leisure, beauty. That was the 
great need of love, to give, give, give. . . . Ludlow 
would not take her gifts. He had flung them back 
in her face. The bruises hurt still. Almost she felt 
as if they must show. 

She put up one hand to the soft round of her 
cheek. Outside the high walls a hum of life sounded. 
Within them life also stirred and quickened. About 
the early June roses white butterflies hovered: birds 
flitted with flash and whir of wing among the trees 
and bushes; the tiny pipes of insects buzzed and 
droned: above in the vivid blue swallows circled. 
Only over the old grey house brooded stillness, the 
quietude of stagnation. 

Yet, there, too, was a life in which she did not 
share. Sometimes, when the green baize passage- 
door was open, Damaris heard sounds of laughter, of 
raised voices from the kitchen, the quick running 
of feet that trod demurely in her presence. Even 
the maids had some sort of life of their own. She 
had seen Benson going out in a gaily coloured cre¬ 
tonne frock and white shoes and stockings, even as 
she, Damaris, once used to go out to meet her lover. 
Had she, too, a lover! . . . 

Lost in thought she did not hear Benson’s 
approach until the girl stood at her elbow. She 
started at the sound of the quiet voice. 

“The mistress told me to tell you tea is in, miss, 
and will # you please come? Mrs. Blaikie is in the 
drawing-room, miss.” 

Mrs. Blaikie, the doctor’s wife, was a distant 
cousin of Ludlow’s. It was at her house they had 
met. Could she possibly bring news of him? Dam¬ 
aris rose and went quickly across the lawn and in 


34 


GOLDEN DISHES 


through the open French window of the drawing¬ 
room where Miss Packe sat enthroned. 

The old-fashioned white and gold paper had been 
on its high walls ever since Damaris’s advent, and 
the gold arabesques still looked black save where 
the light shone full on them. The bunches of flowers 
on the buff brocade curtains and chair-coverings 
were faded now from their earlier brilliance to dim 
pinks, greens and purples. Heavy Victorian fur¬ 
niture, packed cabinets, glass cases covering wax 
and feather flowers and fruit, crowded the room 
to stuffiness. Its atmosphere always caught Dam- 
aris by the throat when she came in from the airy 
spaces of the garden. 

Benson had placed the tea-table in readiness near 
the open window, but Damaris stepped quickly 
past it to greet Mrs. Blaikie, who sat on a stiff settee 
near Miss Packe’s high carved walnut chair with the 
Berlin-wool worked back. 

The two women made a striking contrast. 

Miss Packe, shrunken of figure, and waxen-pale 
of face, in her lace lappets and lavender silk shawl, 
aloof in the fastness of her great age, seemed linked 
with the world about her only by the vitality of 
her bright, dark, restless eyes. 

Mrs. Blaikie was modern and mundane, and had, 
at a vivacious forty-five, achieved an invariable 
effect of smartness by careful attention to her hair 
and by always wearing a small, close-fitting toque 
at absolutely the right angle. 

Her husband, a clever Scotsman, once laughingly 
declared that he owed half his practice to his wife; 
and there was more than a grain of truth in his jest. 

Mrs. Blaikie never missed an opportunity. She 


GOLDEN DISHES 


35 


pounced upon possibilities as a sparrow pounces 
upon crumbs, and turned them either to her own 
advantage or to that of other people. She had a 
kind heart, but a “strong weakness” for pulling 
strings. She had pounced upon Damaris long ago, 
and pulled the strings that brought her penniless 
journalist cousin and the possible heiress together. 
Fate had done the rest: had done it all, the lovers 
would have asserted, unaware as they were of any 
intrusive Dea ex Machina. 

Damaris, pathetically responsive to kindness, 
thought Mrs. Blaikie an angel, and never even 
remotely suspected her of motives less than angelic. 

She greeted her now with a flush of pleasure. 

“Dear Mrs. Blaikie, it’s ages since we’ve seen 
you.” 

“Why, Damaris, you look positively excited!” 
Mrs. Blaikie exclaimed. “Have you had good news?” 

“Yes.” Damaris cast an apologetic glance at Miss 
Packe. “I was coming in to tell you, Aunt Char¬ 
lotte. I’ve just had a letter from my brother--” 

“I suppose you mean your step-brother,” inter¬ 
posed Miss Packe dryly. “I wasn’t aware that poor 
Edgar ever had a son.” 

“No, but my mother had,” Damaris returned, up 
in arms for the beloved Roland. “And she would 
have been very proud of him today-” 

“May we inquire why?” 

“I was just going to tell you,” said Damaris with 
admirable patience. “His picture, which has been 
hung in the Paris Salon, has been bought by a rich 
American, who has commissioned him to paint 
another.” She kept silence as to Roland’s scornful 
—“I’ve flung back his order in his golden teeth!” 




36 


GOLDEN DISHES 

There was no use in spoiling the impression her 
announcement had obviously made. 

“Sold a picture at last!” murmured Miss Packe 
incredulously. 

“How splendid!” said Mrs. Blaikie. “The Paris 
Salon! That’s nearly as good as our Royal 
Academy, isn’t it?” 

“Far, far better,” declared Damaris with all the 
fervour of ignorance. ... If the Salon hung a 
picture of Roland’s and the Academy didn’t it stood 
to reason that the French Exhibition must be in¬ 
finitely the superior! 

Mrs. Blaikie was impressed. Miss Packe merely 
looked scornful and murmured something which 
sounded like “French frogs!” 

“You haven’t travelled much, Miss Packe?” in¬ 
quired Mrs. Blaikie, tentatively. 

“No. England’s good enough for me. There are 
queer people on the Continent.” 

Mrs. Blaikie smiled. “You’re like the man who 
said ‘Thank God, I’m not prejudiced, but I hate all 
foreigners.’ But I quite agree with you. There are 
queer people on the Continent. My husband once 
had an odd adventure with some Russians.” Skil¬ 
fully she steered the conversation round to Dr. 
Blaikie’s cleverness, but not for long. She switched 
it off to topics of local interest before Miss Packe 
could become bored. Damaris listened, half-hearing, 
half-heeding, as one listens to the rustle of trees in 
a wind or the babble of a wayside stream. All her 
senses were concentrated on the moment of Mrs. 
Blaikie’s departure, at other times dreaded and post¬ 
poned to the last instant, but now longed for with 
an intensity that almost frightened her. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


37 


She would walk to the gate with her friend. She 
would hear her news if she had any to tell. If not, 
she would pocket her pride and ask for word of 
Ludlow. Her starved heart beat wildly at the 
thought. 

At last Mrs. Blaikie rose and made her adieux. 

“Will you let me out by the gate at the end of the 
garden, Damaris?” she asked. “I have a call to 
pay in Crofton Road before I go home.” 

“The key is in my key-basket,” said Miss Packe. 

Damaris sped on winged feet for the key of the 
wicket. . . . Mrs. Blaikie must have news. She 
must have news. . . . Her heart sang. 

But Mrs. Blaikie had come to extract information 
rather than give it. She rounded on Damaris when 
they were out of earshot of Miss Packe. 

“What’s up between you and Ludlow?” she asked 
sharply. “Why aren’t you wearing his ring? Have 
you sent him away?” 

“I—he—we-” faltered Damaris, crimson con¬ 

fusion from brow to chin at the unexpected thrust. 

“He’s too good a fellow to play fast and loose 
with,” Mrs. Blaikie continued, irritated at the pros¬ 
pect of the failure of one of her most cherished 
manipulations. 

“I haven’t played fast and loose with him,” cried 

Damaris. “I—he-” she caught at her vanishing 

composure. “We—have had a misunderstanding,” 
she ended faintly. 

Yes, a misunderstanding. Surely it was no more 
than that; he would come back to her some day.... 

Mrs. Blaikie’s brow cleared. She raised her hands 
and patted her French toque with its skilfully posed 
purple and crimson dahlias. 




38 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“A misunderstanding?” she echoed comfortably. 
“A lover’s quarrel? People say one must have them, 
but I’m not a great believer in them myself. Charles 
and I have never quarrelled. Make it up with poor 
Ludlow, Damaris. Probably he’s dying to kiss and 
be friends.” 

“But I don’t know where he is. I wrote to him 
last March-” 

“Last March? As long ago as that? What hap¬ 
pened? Didn’t he answer your letter? Men are 
so lazy about writing letters.” 

“He never got it. He went away from his rooms 
without leaving an address, and my—my letter came 
back through the Dead Letter Office.” 

“Dear, dear, how tiresome! But that wasn’t alto¬ 
gether poor Ludlow’s fault. Why didn’t you send 
a letter to the London Weekly office? They’d have 
forwarded it to him.” 

“Would they?” Damaris wondered. “I never 
thought of that.” 

“It’s the first thing I’d have thought of,” re¬ 
torted Mrs. Blaikie, suppressing a desire to shake 
her. 

“Perhaps he doesn’t want to hear.” 

“Nonsense, you goose. Of course he does.” 

“Has he written to you?” Damaris breathlessly 
awaited an answer. 

“Yes. No. Let me see. I think I had a picture 
post-card from him about a month ago.” 

“Where was he then?” 

“In Milan, I think. Yes. It must have been. 
There was a picture of Milan Cathedral on it, I 
remember.” 

“He may be miles away from Milan by this.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


39 


“What does that matter? The London Weekly 
will know. You’ve read his articles, of course. 
Awfully good, I call them. On the popular side, 
naturally, but he gets an extraordinary amount of 
information and observation into them, don’t you 
think?” 

“I haven’t read them,” answered Damaris awk¬ 
wardly. “Aunt Charlotte doesn’t get the paper, and 
I-” She stopped abruptly. 

Mrs. Blaikie shot a shrewd side-glance at her. 
Was it possible that the old lady kept her so short 
of money that she could not afford the necessary 
weekly shilling? It seemed incredible, but still- 

“Never mind. I’ll send them to you. I have all 
the numbers with his articles in them.” 

“Thanks ever so much. I’ve been longing-” 

Mrs. Blaikie’s brain worked quickly. “Some 
idiocy on Ludlow’s part, I suppose. The girl cares 
just as much as ever. The breach is evidently not 
irrevocable. I must see what can be done. The 
old lady must leave her something, and with a little 
money she would be just the wife for Ludlow. She’ll 
soften him, and he’ll enjoy mastering her. She’s 
a gentle creature and attractive, in spite of her queer 
upbringing.” 

Mrs. Blaikie had no vision of the rock-like Dam¬ 
aris whom Tempest had seen, nor could she envisage 
the fact that her puppets were puppets no longer. 
The strings had slipped from her fingers, if indeed, 
she had ever held them. 

“One man may lead a horse to the water, but 
twenty cannot make him drink,” especially if the 
water be the water of Love, of whose fount more 
quaff than the merely thirsty. 


40 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Well, think it over, Damaris,” Mrs. Blaikie said 
brightly. “And if your hard little heart softens 
send the poor boy a line. The London Weekly will 
certainly forward a letter for you.” 

Damaris smiled noncommittally. Her heart had 
hardened rather than softened. If Ludlow could 
write to Mrs. Blaikie he could have written to her. 
She had no more doves to send faring over the flood 
of his forgetfulness. It was he who had flung the 
sharp suggestion of their parting at her, wounding 
her with it. It was for him to make the first move 
towards reconciliation. She opened the wooden door 
in the wall. 

‘Til send you his post-card too, if I can find it,” 
Mrs. Blaikie continued. “He said he was on the 
track of some Communist or other, wanted to get 
first-hand information from him, or something. 
Good-bye, dear, and take care of yourself. Miss 
Packe looks better than I’ve seen her for months.” 

She was gone, with little nods and smiles and 
waves of her smart white-gloved hand. 

Damaris shut the wicket and walked slowly back 
to the house, conscious of a pricking sense of dis¬ 
appointment. Mrs. Blaikie’s visit had stirred her, 
made her restless, shown her anew the maddening 
monotony of her squirrel-cage. 

Why hadn’t Ludlow written to her? Had he really 
meant to cut adrift from her for ever? He had 
loved her once: he had, he had. Memory pelted her 
with words of gold. Love was a big thing, a real 
thing. It couldn’t be suddenly snuffed out like a 
flame of a candle. . . . “Oh, Ludlow! Ludlow!” 
her sore heart cried. 

Her feet lagged as she drew near the house, drawn 


GOLDEN DISHES 41 

reluctantly towards the French window by the inex¬ 
orable hand of Duty. 

Aunt Charlotte would want to be read to for an 
hour or so. Then there would be supper, then a 
game of piquet, then bed for Miss Packe, and an 
empty hour for herself. She could read, of course, 
but she had nothing particularly interesting to read. 
If only she had the papers with Ludlow’s articles in 
them! . . . But Mrs. Blaikie would never think of 
sending them so soon. She was far too busy for 
that. 

Damaris paused as she entered the drawing-room. 
It was very still. Aunt Charlotte sat upright as 
usual in her chair, but her head was bent a little to 
one side. Her eyes were closed and there was a curi¬ 
ous little smile on her lips. She had fallen asleep as 
she so often and so quickly did nowadays. She 
would not want to be read to just yet. 

Damaris stole softly nearer to draw the shawl 
more closely about the shrunken little figure. 

The hush deepened. There was a strangeness 
about it: a weight almost tangible. Her heart¬ 
beats quickened. What did it mean? She bent 
closer. She could hear no sound of breathing. 

“Aunt Charlotte! Are you asleep?” she cried in 
sudden panic. 

She put her warm hand on the wrinkled folded 
ones and shook them gently. There was no stir of 
response in their chilly passivity. 

Miss Packe slept on, still with that little aloof 
mysterious smile about her parted lips. 

She, Charlotte Packe, who had found England 
good enough for her length of days, had suddenly 
gone on a journey, the greatest journey of all. 


42 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Death had gently closed the tired eyes and bidden 
the worn old body rest. 

She did not want Damaris any more. A great 
loneliness flooded the girl as she fell on her knees 
beside the still figure. 


CHAPTER FIVE 



DLOW TEMPEST saw the announce¬ 
ment of Miss Packers death in a week- 
old Times at an hotel in Baveno, just 
as he was making up his mind to write 
to Damaris. Bitter resentment welled 
within him as he read. 

Miss Packe had cheated him in her lifetime of 
what had been the sweetest thing in a rather hard 
and lonely existence. She stood between him and 
Damaris still more irrevocably in her death. How 
could he write to her now and ask forgiveness for 
his harshness? It would look as if he were after 
her money, the hateful money she had earned by 
her renunciation of him; the money he had urged 
her to throw away. 

If she had been the woman he thought her she 
would have done it, too. If she had really cared as 
she pretended to care- No, there was no pre¬ 

tence about Damaris Packe. It was her crystal- 
clear honesty which had most closely drawn him to 
her: which had thrust him from her, too, if the 
truth were known, where a more subtle woman 
would have held him with a closer-veiled guile. 

Hurt pride and love tugged at Tempest’s heart¬ 
strings. He threw the paper from him and went 
quickly out of the hotel, spurred by the need of 
action. 

Down through the gardens he went, out to the 
rough roadway that led by a now half-dry mountain 
43 










44 


GOLDEN DISHES 


torrent to Lake Maggiore, and on through the little 
acacia grove, set like a soft green plume at the 
lake’s edge. 

It was the hour of siesta, and Tempest had the 
place to himself. The strip of shore was deserted. 
The Borromean Islands lay dreaming on the shim¬ 
mering blue of the water. Here and there a boat, 
with orange or white awning, drifted by like some 
poising butterfly. At the head of the lake a silver- 
green strip of land showed at the foot of the moun¬ 
tains: the plain of Fonda Toce. Little brown-red 
towns clustered along the water’s edge. Beauty 
brooded over the place like a spell, using enchant¬ 
ments of colour, light and perfume. Its witchery 
held no charm for Tempest. It rather roused a 
restless resentment within him. For weeks at a 
time he had kept thought of Damaris at bay. Now 
it leaped upon him with all the urgency of old desire. 

If only she were there how perfect it would have 
been in the green shade of the little acacia grove! 
What new beauties each would have found in snow¬ 
capped mountain and dreaming island! The green 
and purple Sasso del Ferro would have looked be- 
nignantly down upon their joy. The- 

“Damn!” cried Tempest, jumping to his feet 
again. 

He could not bear to think of Damaris any more. 
The blue of her eyes, the rose-tinted curve of her 
cheek, the dear incongruous grey mist of her hair 
seemed reflected in all he looked upon. 

He went back to the hotel and called for his bill, 
requesting that his valise should be sent after him 
by train to Mergozzo. 

“I myself will walk,” he announced in the fluent, 



GOLDEN DISHES 45 

if not highly polished Italian which he had picked up 
during his service on the Italian Front. 

The padrone held up hands of horror. 

“Walk! In this sunshine! At such an hour of 
the day! With respect, the signor must be mad!” 

“Are not all Englishmen mad, Signor Lanti?” 
asked Tempest with a smile. 

“As regards the walking, perhaps, yes,” Signor 
Lanti admitted, a trifle reluctantly, for he liked his 
English clientele on the whole. “But will not the 
signor take the train to Mergozzo?” 

“The signor’s bag will take the train to Mer¬ 
gozzo, but for me, I need the exercise.” 

“Ah, the exercise!” sighed Signor Lanti, as one 
who bowed to the inevitable. “The signor will do 
well to cross the railway bridge from Feriolo to 
Fonda Toce. It will save him a long round.” 

“Many thanks for the hint,” Tempest returned. 

“Of a truth that one has quicksilver on his back,” 
mused Signor Lanti, as he watched his guest depart. 
“Here today, gone tomorrow. Truly a restless race, 
these English.” 

Tempest was glad that he had taken his host’s 
advice by the time he reached the little brown- 
roofed, clustering Fonda Toce. The day was hot 
and he was quite ready to stop beneath the vine- 
fringed pergola of a wayside Albergo, and refresh 
himself with the rough red wine of the country. 

Incidentally he tried to glean some tidings as to 
the whereabouts of one Giuseppe Ferranti, who was 
supposed to be one of the leading lights of the local 
Communist party, and as such, a mine of information 
to Tempest. 

After some expenditure of time, money and elo- 


46 


GOLDEN DISHES 


quence he elicited the fact that “Beppe,” as he was 
familiarly called by the padrone of the Albergo, was 
not exactly courting public notice just at present. 

“An unfortunate little affair in Milan,” the 
swarthy host explained airily. “One of the Fascisti 
unluckily happened to get killed by the Communisti 

during the May processions and-” He shrugged. 

“What will you? Blood runs hot on these occasions. 
It is sometimes better to let a little. Beppe has been 
in America. He has all sorts of grasshoppers in his 
head. His brother, Benedetto, the charcoal-burner, 
may be able to tell you of him. He, like myself, is 
a quiet fellow and does not mix himself up in politics. 
A mad game, signor, whichever way you look at it. 
It is better to keep a little Albergo like mine and 
refresh the weary traveller when he comes this way. 
The quiet life is the longest in the end.” He made 
the sign of the cross. 

Tempest looked at him with a smile. 

“But when one’s country calls?” 

“Ah, then -! Those Austrians! ...” He 

spat on the ground. “For one’s country the best 
blood of Italy must flow. But now that we have 
peace—if only those wild ones would let us enjoy 
it! . . . Well, signor, if you must be getting on, 
keep to the left side of the lake and take the path 
upwards through the woods. In the big chestnut 
grove you will find the house of Benedetto, the 
charcoal-burner. Tell him that you have fought 
with us against the Austrians—Maledictions on 
them!—and all that he has will be yours.” 

Tempest thanked him and went once more upon 
his way. 

It was cool and dusky in the woods after the 



GOLDEN DISHES 


47 


deep white dust of the road by the granite quarries. 
Through the slim brown stems of larches he saw the 
silver-blue glimmer of the little lake Mergozzo. 
Away to the right stretched the flat, green plain of 
Fonda Toce, above which the mountains rose 
steeply, mossed with verdure almost to their rocky 
summits. 

The path wound, a brown thread, through ferny 
tangles of undergrowth, up and down, each rise and 
fall bringing some new glimpse of beauty into view. 
Suddenly it dipped again to the lake, skirted a tiny 
shingled bay and rose to a little promontory on 
which stood a cluster of stone pines, dark against 
the shimmering water. 

Tempest, leaning against the rough trunk of one, 
took off his hat and mopped his streaming forehead. 
Then he flung hat, stick and himself on the ground, 
and stretched himself out luxuriously under the 
pine trees. 

The soft air, the droning hum of insects, the 
gentle lap-lapping of the water below him lulled all 
his senses to a delicious drowsiness. He slept, for¬ 
getting all things. 

Suddenly he awakened, some inner sense con¬ 
scious of what his outward senses were not yet 
aware. He sat up and looked about him. 

On a rock at the other side of the little bay a 
slender figure was poised for a dive. A faded green 
bathing-dress clung closely to the lithe curves of a 
firm young body. Tawny hair was wound in two 
plaits round a wetly gleaming head. Tempest had 
scarcely grasped these salient facts when the girl 
dived, disappearing into the blue depths of the lake 
and rising again after a long interval at a con- 


48 


GOLDEN DISHES 


siderable distance from the shore. She shook the 
drops from her tawny mane as a swimming dog 
might, springing through the water with a joyous 
ease, floating, diving, playing with a small red 
ball. 

Tempest watched her as one would watch some 
naiad of the lake. She had no humanity for him. 
She was water-sprite only, frolicking exquisitely in 
her lovely element. Even when she tired of her play 
and clambered out on her promontory once more 
she was still naiad rather than girl. It was not until 
she peeled off her clinging green garment and stood 
for a moment revealed in the white beauty of her 
innocence that Tempest realized his trespass. 

Then he did the hardest thing he had ever done 
in his life. 

He closed his eyes. 

A half-forgotten verse flashed back to his mind as 
he did so. 

“Once gods were gracious. Perhaps in play 
They flung to me this chance, 

For there, in that green, green space one day, 

I saw the wood-nymphs dance!” 

In that magic moment a wood-nymph danced for 
him and he must not look. His eyes were holden 
by a code which he might regret but could not 
ignore. 

When he opened them again, the naiad had dis¬ 
appeared. In her place was a young girl with a 
sun-tanned face and two long plaits of tawny hair 
whose little tendrils at brow and neck glistened 
like threads of gold. She was prosaically engaged 
in wringing out a wet green bathing-dress, which she 


GOLDEN DISHES 


49 


spread on the shore to dry. She wore a brown hol- 
land tunic which reached just below knees almost 
as brown. 

Tempest felt half-resentfully as if he had been 
cheated out of something beautiful, something 
magical. 

The girl turned towards the wood, leaving her 
bathing-dress a green splash on the white shingle. 
Tempest sprang to his feet. If he went back the 
way he had come he would probably meet her. 
She might be able to tell him where this Benedetto 
lived, or failing that put him on the right track for 
the little town of Mergozzo, of which as yet he had 
caught no glimpse. 

He hastened back along the winding path to 
where it branched. The sound of footsteps told 
him that the girl had taken the upper turning. He 
cut through the undergrowth in order to meet her 
face to face, and in a moment had reached the 
upper track. 

Whistling with a shrill sweetness the girl came 
suddenly round a bend. Tempest halted and raised 
his hat. 

“Scusi, signorina,” he began, then stopped sud¬ 
denly. “You’re English, surely?” 

The girl laughed and shot an amused glance out 
of slightly tilted greenish-grey eyes. There was 
something vaguely familiar about the look. Where 
had he seen it before? 

“Is it so apparent as all that?” she said in a voice 
which had a slightly un-English intonation. “I am 
disappointed.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I fancied myself cosmopolitan. A child 


50 


GOLDEN DISHES 


of the world rather than of any one nationality,” 
the girl answered with a curious frankness. 

Tempest looked at her, slightly puzzled. 

She could not be more than seventeen, he thought. 
Her face still showed the round contours of child¬ 
hood, but her manner had all the self-confidence, 
all the poise of that citizen of the world which she 
claimed to be. 

“I’jn afraid IVe lost my way,” Tempest ex¬ 
plained. “Perhaps you would be good enough to 
put me on the right road for Mergozzo.” 

“But there isn’t any road on this side of the 
lake,” laughed the girl. “The road is at the other 
side. There is only a mule-track through the woods 
here.” 

“Perhaps you will tell me how to find the mule- 
track, then.” 

“Perhaps I shall do nothing of the kind. Per¬ 
haps I am a brigand and will carry you off to my 
cave, where Nutkin and I will eat you for supper.” 

“That is a terrifying prospect.” 

She was all absurd child now, Tempest thought, 
with her play of caves and brigands. 

“Perhaps if you’re very nice we shan’t eat you,” 
she returned, coaxingly. “You are nice, aren’t you, 
Signor Inglese?” 

“Sometimes,” answered Tempest, amused at her 
mixture of audacity and naivete. 

“Be nice now and come back with me to the 
Villino Gobbo. Nutkin would love to see you.” 

“Why Villino Gobbo?” If this really were a 
fairy tale he might as well enjoy it while it lasted, 
Tempest considered. Charcoal-burners and world 
unrest might very well wait for the moment: though 


GOLDEN DISHES 51 

a charcoal-burner would be quite in the picture, as 
he conceived it. 

“You’ll know when you see it.” 

“And who is Nutkin?” 

“My father. Follow me. The path here isn’t 
wide enough for two abreast,” she called over her 
shoulder, as she turned suddenly and plunged down 
a scarcely perceptible track. 

Still imbued with a sense of the unreality of the 
whole proceeding Tempest followed her. Her san¬ 
dalled feet almost danced in their eagerness: her 
bare brown arms held aside switching branches for 
him. Brambles scratched her sunburnt legs, but 
she did not seem to mind. 

She was essentially a creature of the woods and 
waters, Tempest thought. On land the nymph 
seemed to vanish, to become merged in a being more 
elfin, more faunlike. Then the human suddenly 
peeped out in a typically mortal curiosity. 

“What in the world are you doing at Mergozzo?” 
she asked over her shoulder. 

“I haven’t got there yet,” Tempest reminded her. 

“No. But when you do? Tourists never go to 
Mergozzo.” 

“I’m not a tourist,” exclaimed Tempest, with all 
the indignation a traveller feels at the appellation. 

The girl laughed and cast a swift appraising 
glance at his old tweed suit and dusty brown 
shoes. 

“What then?” 

“A journalist.” 

Her face brightened. “A real live journalist! 
Looking for copy? You’ll find lots here. For in¬ 
stance, Benedetto-” 



52 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Benedetto, the charcoal-burner?” He almost 
shouted the name. 

“Yes. The very one. Do you know him?” 

“No, but I want to.” 

“What for?” 

“To get some information out of him.” 

The girl stopped and swung round to face him 
so suddenly that they almost collided. She caught 
his coat lapels to steady herself before she stepped 
back a pace. Tempest stepped back too, a little 
stirred by the soft involuntary contact. 

The girl’s eyes brightened and narrowed. Her 
red lips took on a more mocking curve. 

“You’ll have to square me first,” she declared. 
“Benedetto is a great friend of mine. If I com¬ 
mand him to tell you nothing, you will get more 
information out of Sasso del Ferro below there. If, 
on the contrary-” 

“It is really his brother, Giuseppe, with whom I 
am anxious to converse,” Tempest interrupted. “I 
merely want a little first-hand information about the 
local communist movement.” 

“Ah! If that is all . . .’’the girl paused. Then 
she spoke quickly, eagerly, the child surprisingly 
merged in the citizen of the world again. “It would 
be a good thing if you could get Beppe out of the 
country. He is hiding in Benedetto’s house at pres¬ 
ent and making love to Assunta, his wife. Formerly 
Benedetto used only to beat her. Now I am afraid 
that if Beppe doesn’t soon go he will kill her.” 

Tempest started. There was something subtly 
jarring in so calm a statement of grim facts from 
such young lips. The girl was serious now and a 
little troubled. 



GOLDEN DISHES 


S3 


“Why do you think that?” he asked. 

“Don’t I know my own fowl?” she countered, in 
the Italian idiom. “Beppe’s a flashy creature. He 
wears square-shouldered coats and pointed brown 
boots and talks English with an American twang. 
He has been advised to lie low for a while, so has 
nothing to do but make love to Assunta. I tried to 
get our woman, Caterina, to take him on, but she 
has a ‘promesso’ of her own, and refused to have 
anything to do with Master Beppe. She says— 
quite naturally, too, I admit—that it would be better 
to have Benedetto kill Assunta than to have her 
Paolo kill her!” 

Tempest had no answer ready. The fairy-tale 
seemed to have suddenly become grand opera. He 
was unused to such swift and dramatic changes of 
atmosphere. 

The girl turned, went on with slower gait, appar¬ 
ently lost in thought. The path dipped again: the 
wood thinned to a clearing. She looked back to 
fling a warning over her shoulder. 

“You will please say nothing to Nutkin of all 
this. I will not have him troubled. He is painting 
the soul of Mergozzo and mustn’t be worried.” 

“Ah, your father is a painter, then,” said Tem¬ 
pest, seizing at last upon something tangible, some¬ 
thing understandable. 

The girl tilted back her head and laughed. One 
tawny plait swung over her shoulder. 

“Why, what else could he possibly be?” she cried, 
a faint tinge of contempt in her tone. 

“What, indeed?” echoed Tempest helplessly. 

“Ah, you are a nice Signor Inglese, after all! Here 
we are. Climb over this boulder and slide down 


54 


GOLDEN DISHES 


this bit of wall and you are in the garden of the 
Villino Gobbo.” 

Tempest climbed and slid as directed, and found 
himself in a tangled garden which sloped down to 
the lake in front of a shabby little villa, whose 
mildewed cream walls were painted with a faded 
frieze of brown and blue arabesques. 

The girl caught Tempest by the arm and turned 
him to face the house. 

“Now you see why we call it Villino Gobbo! 
Poverino! it’s got one shoulder higher than the other, 
and in this light its eyes always squint! Look!” 

Tempest looked. The tumble-down villa certainly 
did wear rather a hunchback appearance, and in the 
evening sunlight its twinkling windows, under their 
shaggy creeper-eyebrows, did look a little like 
squinting eyes. 

“So this is where you live,” he said smiling. 

“No, this is where we perch,” she corrected. 
“Didn’t I tell you that we were citizens of the world? 
I expect we’ll go on somewhere else as soon as we 
get enough money. Paris, I hope. But for today 
this is as good a place as any other. By the way, 
what is your name? Or do you prefer to be known 
by a nom de plume?” 

“My name is Tempest.” 

The girl either did not catch or else wilfully mis¬ 
understood him, for she made a dancing step or 
two and cried: 

“Tempus? What, that’s Time! Father Time. 
Quite a young Father Time you are, Mr. Tempus 
—‘Last week in Babylon, last night in Rome’-” 

“Morning, and in the crush under Paul’s dome,” 
he finished the quotation. 



GOLDEN DISHES 


55 


Of all the surprising things in this most unusual 
conversation it astonished him most to hear this 
elfin creature quoting Ralph Hodgson in the garden 
of Villino Gobbo. She caught him up with the first 
verse, to which she gave a whimsically personal 
application. 

“ ‘Time, you old gipsy man, 

Will you not stay, 

Put up your caravan, 

Just for one day?’ 

“Don’t run away until I’ve found Nutkin. It’s 
such ages since he’s met any one of his own kind. 
He’ll probably call you a survival, or a relic of 
barbarism or something like that, but you won’t 
mind, will you? It’ll be so good for him to talk to 
a real Englishman again. You will stay until I find 
him, won’t you, Mr. Tempus?” 

“Certainly,” answered Tempest, accepting his new 
name and mission with an odd sense of fatality. 
There was something almost maternal in the way 
the girl spoke of her father. Truly, she was an 
extraordinary creature. 

The girl ran to the house, whistling a call of three 
notes as she went. A faint answer echoed from 
within. She turned and waved her hand to Tempest 
as she disappeared beneath the porch, which was 
almost hidden by a torrent of heather-purple bou¬ 
gainvillea. 

A feeling of unreality still enwrapped Tempest. 
He felt that he must soon awaken and find himself 
leading an ordinary life again: that this wild wood- 
creature and her painter-father would presently take 
on their proper semblance of a half-remembered 
dream. Half-remembered? ... He paused on the 


56 


GOLDEN DISHES 


phrase. Yes, there was a disturbing familiarity 
about the girl’s face. Where had he seen that half- 
mocking, half-provocative expression before? 

He turned to look at the lake, turquoise now in 
its bronze mountain setting: a magic scene where 
anything might happen. But nothing happened to 
place that puzzling recollection. 

“Coo-ee—oo, Mr. Tempus! Here we are!” called 
a gay voice behind him. 

He swung round to find himself incredibly look¬ 
ing straight into the blue eyes of Damaris Packe. 

In an instant he realized that they were set in the 
face of a man, but for the moment the unexpected 
resemblance made his blood pound madly. He 
pulled himself together and went forward, as Fate 
had ordained. 


CHAPTER SIX 



TKIN, this is Mr. Tempus,” the girl 
cried with twinkling eyes. “Isn’t it 
splendid of me to bring you a real live 
journalist for your supper?” 

The slight, shabbily clad man on 
whose arm she hung, laughed as he held out a 
paint-stained hand to Tempest. 

“Splendid, indeed! Gad, Tempus, ’tis years since 
I saw a suit like yours! You don’t happen to have 
any Virginian tobacco about you by any chance? 
This stuff here-!” 

Tempest pulled out a leather pouch which Dam- 
aris had once given him, and handed it over. 

“Honeydew’s my mixture,” he said. “Help your¬ 
self.” 

Nutkin took a pinch between finger and thumb 
and snuffed the tobacco with delight. 

The longer Tempest looked at him the more he 
wondered at his odd illusion. The man who so 
hungrily savoured the tobacco-scent had a lean, deli¬ 
cate face with blue-shaved chin and jaw, smooth 
black hair and odd flat “bull-fighter’s” whiskers. His 
eyes were surprisingly blue, it is true, but there the 
resemblance ended. Their expression was like that 
of the grey-green ones, now turned up adoringly 
towards him, gay and careless, perhaps a trifle chal¬ 
lenging. They had not the wistful appeal of Dam- 
aris’s eyes. How could he have thought it for an 
instant? Resemblances were queer tricky things. 

57 










58 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Take as much as you want,” Tempest said. 
“I have a couple of tins in my bag.” 

“Lucky dog!” the other returned, helping himself 
freely. Then he turned to his daughter. “Pixy- 
thing, what have we got for supper?” 

“A tame journalist.” 

“But what else?” 

“I don’t know. How should I? I always leave 
that to Caterina.” 

Nutkin poked her cheek with a painty forefinger. 
“Worst of children! Tell her to lay another place.” 

“She’s sure to have some eggs,” said the girl as 
she went. 

Tempest protested. “I must really get on to Mer- 
gozzo. I never intended to inflict myself on you. 
I merely-” 

“Mon Dieu, man, stop havering, as my old Scots 
nurse used to say! I didn’t know I was homesick 
until I saw that tweed suit of yours. You positively 
smell of England. The Pixy-child brought you here 
for my supper. You needn’t think I’ll let you go 
until I’ve devoured you. Sit down and tell me all 
about London.” He waved his hand towards two 
rickety deck-chairs near the porch, and continued 
his filling of an ancient briar-pipe with Tempest’s 
tobacco. “Light up, man. Stifle me with a cloud of 
that heavenly incense. ‘And you shall feed on 

honeydew-’ I don’t want the milk of Paradise 

while I have that!” He puffed delightedly. “Is the 
Coq d’Or still in Soho and does the old piccolo chap 
still come there every night? Is there even one 
hansom-cab left in London? Do the gipsy women 
still cry lavender in Chelsea? Have all the painters 
really turned respectable? I saw one or two of them 




GOLDEN DISHES 


59 


in Paris a couple of years ago! . . . Mon Dieu, it’s 
no wonder you have a Royal Academy!” His eager 
questions poured forth. He accepted Tempest with¬ 
out query. His Pixy had brought him as her wood¬ 
land trove to him. That was enough for one who 
lived from day to day, who set no roots in any 
place deeper than a tent-peg, to be pulled up without 
toil or regret for tomorrow’s flitting. 

It seemed but a moment before the girl came 
back. She had changed into an old white frock and 
tied up her plaits with green ribbons, the fairies’ 
colour. 

“Caterina’s making the omelette, so you’d better 
wash your hands, if you want to,” she announced. 
“You certainly do, Nutkin. I’ve put water in the 
bathroom for you, Mr. Tempus. Nutkin, show him 
the way.” 

Her father rose reluctantly. “Slave-driver! Just 
when I was really enjoying myself! Why must we 
eat at stated times? It’s only a convention, after 
all! Can’t we have things left in the pantry and go 
and eat there when we feel inclined?” 

“Even so, some one would have to cook them,” 
the girl returned practically. “You’d be the last 
person in the world, Nutkin, to relish raw meat.” 

“Hideous thought! Come along, Tempus. You 
look marvellously clean. Still, I suppose you’d like 
to wash.” He paused and waved a hand at the 
gleaming lake. “This ought to purge your soul of 
printer’s ink, at any rate. Even mine isn’t too paint- 
stained to wonder at it still.” 

He turned abruptly and went into the house. 
“Villino Gobbo” was supposed to be furnished, but 
the person who had let it as such was evidently the 


60 


GOLDEN DISHES 


possessor of a very vivid imagination. It held the 
bare necessaries, no more. Still those were enough 
for the nomads who inhabited it. The so-called 
bathroom, a mere slip, boasted a round battered tin 
bath in one corner and an enamelled basin poised 
precariously on an iron tripod in another. A rough 
towel lay across the back of a rickety chair and a 
puff of steam denoted the presence of hot water in a 
brown earthenware jug on the floor. Soap in a 
tin dish on the seat of the chair completed the 
ablutionary outfit. 

As Tempest was the possessor of a pocket comb 
he was able to make quite a respectable toilet, and 
he felt decidedly fresher and cleaner as he went 
down the uncarpeted stone stairs of the Villino 
Gobbo, with a quickened interest in his surround¬ 
ings. 

Nutkin stood in the porch, still smoking 
delightedly, his hands in his pockets. 

“You’ve done your good deed for today,” he 
remarked without turning round. “This pipeful of 
tobacco ought to waft you into Heaven if you never 
did another.” 

“Is Heaven so easily earned?” queried Tempest 
dryly. 

“It isn’t earned at all. That’s the joy and the 
lovely unreasonableness of it. It’s here, all around 
us. Showered on us, poured on us, the worthy and 
the unworthy alike. Heaven is beauty, that’s all.” 
He paused, then went on as if to himself. 

“ ‘Beauty of morning and sun and day, 

Beauty of water and frost and star, 

Beauty of dusk-tide, narrowing greyl 


GOLDEN DISHES 


61 


Beauty of silver light, 

Beauty of purple night . . . 

Beauty of dawn and dew-’ 

“Mon Dieu, beauty! Beauty!” He raised his 
hands ecstatically towards the rose-flushed evening 
sky. 

His evident emotion made Tempest feel vaguely 
uncomfortable. He, too, loved beauty, but it was in 
his own hidden way. He could not rave about it 
as this man did. He might, like Nutkin’s poet, 
hymn beauty with his pen, but vocally he was 
inarticulate. 

A voice from the porch brought them suddenly 
back to the normal. “Belovedest Nutkin, why do 
you waste time repeating poetry when the omelette 
is getting cold?” 

“A malediction on the infernal omelette!” 

“You won’t say that when you’re eating it!” 

The girl slipped her hand through her father’s 
arm and twitched him towards the house. “Caterina 
will be furious if we don’t eat her omelette while 
it’s hot.” 

“Ah, well, there is beauty in an omelette, too, as 
Caterina fries it,” said Nutkin, capitulating sud¬ 
denly. “But there is no beauty in Caterina’s rages. 
Non e vero, Caterina?” he asked as he entered the 
bare room where supper was laid. 

A rough red and white cloth covered the table, 
which bore a rush-covered flask of Chianti, half a 
yard of brown loaf, a wedge of cheese, thick glass 
tumblers and gaily-patterned plates of coarse pot¬ 
tery, a bowl of salad and the dish with the omelette, 
which a dark-eyed, tempersome-looking Caterina 
had just planted decisively on the table. 


62 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Non so, signor” answered Caterina, who did not 
understand a word of English. “But the omelette 
will only be food for the pigs if it is not eaten 
quickly.” 

“Sit down, Tempus. You must be hungry after 
your walk. By the way, where did you walk from?” 

“Only from Baveno,” Tempest returned. 

“Only? Mon Dieu, my boots would never stand 
that!” 

The girl laughed. “Nutkin hates walking. All 
he cares for really is painting—and me.” 

“Mustn’t forget the little sister,” Nutkin put in, 
on an obvious afterthought. 

“Oh, the little sister doesn’t count. She’s only 
a myth,” laughed the girl. 

But she drew her brows together even as she 
smiled, and bit sharply into a brown crust, as if, 
perhaps, it was the little sister she was biting. 

“My little sister isn’t a myth.” He turned to 
Tempest. “She’s a poor little princess, shut up in a 
tower that’s guarded by a dragon. Some day when 
I’ve money enough I’m going back to England to do 
battle with the dragon and set her free.” 

“Nutkin, you do talk nonsense,” said the girl a 
trifle sharply. “You know you don’t really want 
to go back to England.” 

The atmosphere seemed suddenly to lose its care¬ 
less gaiety. It became tense with the constraint of 
an old argument. Nutkin’s face changed subtly. It 
thinned and lengthened to a curious wistfulness that 
in some queer way clutched at Tempest’s heart. 

“Sometimes I think I’d sell my soul to go back 
to England,” he said in a strange husky whisper, 
almost as if he were speaking to himself. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


63 


The girl shot out a swift brown hand and clutched 
his arm. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Say you wouldn’t,” 
she said vehemently, shaking his old velveteen sleeve. 
“You know you always detested its smoke and 
fogs and hateful rainy weather. You’ve often said 
how much you loathed its smug conventions, its cold 
hypocrisy. You brought me up to laugh at its 
pretensions, its-” 

“I never brought you up to laugh at England,” 
the man cried with a ring in his tone. 

The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Not the ideal 
England, perhaps. But the England full of the 

stupid people and ideas you despise-” She 

shrugged her shoulders again as she got up to change 
the plates. It was a trick that vaguely irritated 
Tempest. He did not know why. 

Nutkin shot a quick deprecating glance in his 
direction. 

“What rotten bad form to squabble before an 
honoured guest!” he exclaimed lightly. “We’ve for¬ 
gotten our manners in our exile, although at present 
we live among perhaps the best-mannered people 
in Europe. Forgive us, Tempus. This little girl of 
mine has never been in the England she affects to 
despise, so condone her ignorance, please.” 

“How long is it since you’ve been home?” asked 
Tempest, accepting the proffered apology with a 
nod and a smile. 

“Home?” the painter echoed. “Not for eighteen 
years. I’ve been a wanderer on the face of the 
earth ever since my wife died and left me with that 
Pixy-thing there sixteen years ago. It was just a 
year old and almost as full of original sin then as 
it is now.” 



64 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Did you bring her up by yourself?” 

“Oh, there were always women about,” returned 
Nutkin airily. “We were never parted until that 
detestable war broke out. I stuck her into a con¬ 
vent then-” 

“From which I should certainly have run away 
if Nutkin hadn’t been invalided out of the Army 
in the nick of time,” said the girl, putting a bowl 
of wild strawberries, steeped in red wine after the 
Italian fashion, on the table. 

She sat down and began to help them, talking the 
while. “Oh, it was a stuffy place! I should have 
died soon. Such fools as the other girls were, too. 
They didn’t even know the A B C of life-” 

“Any more than you know the A B C of letters,” 
retorted her father. 

Tempest, rather to his own surprise, took up the 
cudgels in her defence. “Who quoted Ralph 
Hodgson in the wood just now?” 

“Ralph Hodgson?” She looked at him in blank 
bewilderment. 

“Time, you old gipsy-man-!” he hinted. 

Her brow cleared. “Oh, that thing. I’ve heard 
Nutkin say it and I rather liked it. It seemed so 
like us, somehow.” 

“She never reads,” said her father sadly. “I 
don’t even know if she can. I’m quite sure she 
can’t spell, though.” 

“What does that matter? You’ve often said your¬ 
self that spelling’s only a convention.” 

“Be careful what you say before a journalist,” 
Nutkin warned her. 

“Oh!” she pouted. “I suppose you are a wonder¬ 
ful speller, Mr. Tempest?” 




GOLDEN DISHES 


65 


“Wonderful!” Tempest rejoined solemnly. 

There was a strange fascination about this odd 
couple. At times they would have seemed to be 
playing a little comedy for his benefit were it not 
that they were both so absolutely natural. He felt 
subtly drawn towards them, and yet, in curious 
contradiction, there were moments when they almost 
repelled him. The feeling puzzled him. He was, as 
a rule, a man of definite likes and dislikes. He was 
not conscious of having experienced such a peculiar 
mixture of attraction and repulsion ever before. 

“Wasn’t it lucky that we kept these strawberries 
for supper?” the girl exclaimed. “I gathered them 
this morning on the slopes above Mergozzo.” 

“Which reminds me,” said Tempest rather reluc¬ 
tantly, “that I really should be getting on my way. 
Perhaps you would put me on the right track as 
soon as convenient.” He turned to his host. 

“My dear fellow, I am loth to part with you,” 
Nutkin cried. “There’s a moon tonight, isn’t there, 
Pixy? You needn’t go for ever so long. I haven’t 
half finished picking your bones yet. You mustn’t 
be in such an infernal hurry.” 

The girl rose and laid a careless hand on Tem¬ 
pest’s shoulder. 

“It will be daylight for hours yet. Do stay and 
talk to Nutkin. It’s meat and drink to him. Go 
and sit outside and smoke while I help Caterina 
with the coffee. I shan’t be long. Then when 
you’ve told him all he wants to know I’ll put you on 
your road. Where are you staying in Mergozzo?” 

“The ‘Black Eagle.’ I’ve had my valise sent 
there.” 

“If we had even a sound deck-chair to offer you 


66 


GOLDEN DISHES 


I would insist on your staying here,” said Nutkin 
regretfully. “But as it is, you see how limited our 
resources are.” He waved a deprecating hand to¬ 
wards the sagging chairs: then sat down in the 
sounder of the two. “Fill your pipe, Tempus. The 
child will bring us coffee in a moment.” 

Tempest took out his pouch and tossed it to the 
other man. “Fill yours out of that. Keep what 
you have for tomorrow. I think I’ll sit on the step 

here and leave the other chair for—for Miss-” 

He paused expectantly. 

“The Signorina Vittoria, the people about here 
call her. But you needn’t be so ceremonious, my 
dear chap. The Pixy-thing doesn’t like chairs. She 
prefers to sit on the ground, or a rock or a branch, 
or any old thing rather than the seat of convention.” 

Tempest pulled at his pipe: then spoke on an 
unconsidered impulse. 

“Apropos of convention, is it quite safe to let a 
young girl like the Signorina Vittoria wander alone 
through these woods?” 

The other laughed and leaned back in his chair. 

“The fluency of the Signorina Vittoria’s vocabu¬ 
lary is warranted to keep even a brigand at bay. 
We nomads are used to taking care of ourselves.” 

“That’s all very well for a man, but for a pretty 

young girl-” Tempest broke out with unexpected 

heat. 

“She’s not really pretty, you know,” Nutkin 
mused. “She’s attractive, provocative, perhaps, but 
scarcely pretty. She’s a bit too bluntly chiselled for 
beauty. Take her nose, for instance-” 

“Sorry. Of course it’s none of my business,” 
interrupted Tempest, reddening. 




GOLDEN DISHES 


67 


“No. Is it?” rejoined the other pleasantly. 
“Pixy’s safe enough. An amorous man would soon 
find that it were better for him to tackle a wild 
she-cat than to make advances to my one and only. 
And as for her, she’s not awake yet. Oh, she’s 
quite safe, my dear Tempus. You needn’t worry.” 

Tempest rose, repulsion definitely uppermost now. 
What manner of man was this to take so little care 
for his child’s safety, moral or physical? A selfish 
hedonist, whither did his cult of beauty lead him? 
Only to things mundane, presumably. Spiritual 
beauty had apparently for him neither force nor 
meaning, despite his recent raptures. 

“Don’t be in such a confounded hurry,” said Nut- 
kin, agreeably. “Your talk of town is like water 
to a thirsty man. If it weren’t for the Pixy-creature 
I’d have slipped over for a glimpse of England long 
ago, but there never was enough money to take us 
both, and I had no one here to leave her with.” 

There was an engaging frankness about this state¬ 
ment that warred once more with Tempest’s little 
spurt of revulsion. . . . Perhaps it was the chap’s 
way to make a cult of beauty and hide his deeper 
love for his daughter beneath an apparent noncha¬ 
lance. . . . Tempest could both understand and 
appreciate that. His tone was warmer as he 
answered: 

“You’re bound to go back some day.” 

“Some day is too often no day. I wonder if it 
would have been better for me to have sold my soul 
to Cyrus P. Shorter and painted his filthy picture 
for him.” 

“Why filthy?” 

“Why not? It would have been painted to order. 


68 GOLDEN DISHES 

What true artist could do that? Can you write to 
order?” 

He sat up suddenly in his chair, his blue eyes 
shining with an extraordinary light, an expression 
of intense disgust on his flexible mouth. 

Tempest smiled. “I’ve got to. You forget that 
I’m a journalist.” 

“But even a journalist may feel the touch of the 
holy fire sometimes. You look as if you had some 
imagination. Your nose isn’t always dipped in 
printer’s ink!” 

Tempest laughed outright. “I’ve written an un¬ 
successful novel or two, if that’s what you mean. 
Of course, like most scribblers, I cherish the thought 
of writing a big book one of these days.” 

“Ah, I knew it! I knew it!” cried Nutkin 
excitedly. “Pixy, offer our confrere his coffee on 
bended knee! He is one of us. How right I was 
to trust your flair, my pigling!” 

Tempest felt more than a touch of embarrassment 
as the girl dropped on one knee before him, holding 
up the battered tray with its thick white coffee-cups 
in a pose that was unconsciously Greek. 

“I salute thee, brother!” she said with a bewitch¬ 
ing gravity. 

The evening sunshine haloed her bronze head with 
living gold. Her soft lips curled up at the corners 
to match the tilt of her eyebrows. Her eyes, open 
now to their widest, looked dark in the small sun¬ 
burnt face. She was like a very young, very 
innocent Bacchante, Tempest thought, prickingly 
conscious of the long tale of years between them. 

“Surely ‘uncle’ would be a better name,” he 
answered with a gravity that echoed her own. 


GOLDEN DISHES 69 

Her momentary softness broke into an instant 
sparkle. 

“No, no, no!” she cried vehemently. “Uncle is a 
stupid stodgy name. You are not a bit like an uncle, 

Mr. Tempus. If you will not be my brother-” 

she paused suggestively. “You must be— 
what-?” 

“What?” echoed Tempest with a sudden stirring 
of his pulses. 

“Pixy, you’re being silly,” said her father rather 
sharply. “Please bring me my coffee before the 
icicles hang on it.” 

In a flash she was at his side. “Icicles! Dearest, 
foolishest!” She bent and whispered, but not so 
low that Tempest did not hear her: “That cup is 
for you. There’s cream in it! I skimmed it off 
the milk for you before I boiled it!” 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


r-^^ | UDLOW TEMPEST had not been long 
■ IHIl at the “Black Eagle’’ before the spell 
j ■ mp l of the “Villino Gobbo” drew him again 
I llMBgl l through the woods like a magnet. He 

- did not attempt to analyse its charm. 

He only knew that it was pleasant to be welcomed 
as the Signor Varingo and the Signorina Vittoria, 
and even the black-browed Caterina welcomed him. 

He waited to establish himself in the good graces 
of the frequenters of the “Black Eagle” before he 
pushed his Communistic inquiries from the general 
to the particular. Meantime, there was the “Villino 
Gobbo” with its fleeting suggestion of home and 
stability, despite the vagrant temperament of its 
occupants. His feet turned towards it instinctively. 

Life was gay there. They argued, they laughed, 
they talked sense and nonsense, but chiefly the 
latter, until Tempest felt younger and lighter of 
heart than he had done for months, and the bruise 
on his spirit lost the edge of its pain. 

“Politics!” Nutkin would shout. “Why the deuce 
do you mix yourself up in them, Tempus? A dirty 
game and devoid of meaning. There have always 
been factions in Italy. In medieval times they 
called themselves Guelphs and Ghibellines and 
amused themselves by making the little paved 
streets of their cities run red with blood. Now they 
call themselves Fascisti and Communisti and use 
revolvers instead of daggers, but it’s all the same 
thing.” 


70 













GOLDEN DISHES 71 

No amount of argument on Tempest’s part would 
move him from this point of view. 

“It’s carrying water to the sea to argue with 
Nutkin,” his daughter declared. “He has only room 
for one idea at a time in his darling head, so there’s 
no earthly use in your trying to insert another.” 

Some queer reluctance, unadmitted to himself, 
kept Tempest from inquiring more closely into the 
circumstances of his new friends. When he told 
Nutkin that the host of the “Black Eagle” spoke of 
him as “Signor Varingo,” he laughed, and said how 
prettily they had Italianized his name. But what 
its English rendering was he did not volunteer, nor 
did Tempest ask. 

Life flowed on in careless ease. Tempest took 
each hour as it came, and that day was rare that did 
not see him at “Villino Gobbo.” He generally made 
his first visit to Caterina at the back door, pulling 
out of his capacious pockets some offering such as 
a cold roast chicken wrapped in fig-leaves, a rush 
basket of fruit, or a bottle of wine. 

There was no false shame on either side now in 
the proffering or acceptance of these little presents, 
though the first time that Tempest made his depre¬ 
cating way to Caterina’s domain one might well have 
thought that his errand was of evil intent rather than 
good. 

“One need not mention anything to the signorina,” 
he said tentatively on that first occasion, his face 
darkly red with embarrassment. 

“But of a certainty, no, signor,” declared Caterina, 
uplifting hands and eyes. 

It was rather a shock to Tempest therefore when 
Vittoria tackled him on the subject next day. 


72 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Nutkin adores pomegranates,” she said simply. 
“Do bring him some next time if they are ripe. He 
would really rather have those than a chicken. 
Assunta keeps plenty of fowl and lets us have them 
cheap.” 

Her entire absence of self-consciousness rather 
took Tempest’s breath away, but on looking deeper 
into the matter he saw that there was no other 
attitude which he would have preferred. Gratitude 
would only have embarrassed him. She took as 
simply and naturally as he gave. 

Her world revolved round the Great God Nutkin. 
What more natural than that offerings and obla¬ 
tions should be laid at his shrine? 

How was it that some women insisted on making 
gods of such very mortal men? Gods to whom they 
would sacrifice any one, anything, even as Damaris, 
his sweetest woman, had sacrificed him on the altar 
of—was it Mammon or Roland Waring? It did not 
much matter. Either idea was equally repugnant 
to him. 

Here was another altar set for another worship. 
But was it really another? . . . Who was Nutkin’s 
dragon-guarded little sister? . . . Rubbish! The 
idea was absurd, far-fetched, fantastic, Tempest told 
himself. . . . But somewhere at the back of his mind 
he knew quite well why he did not inquire more 
closely into the English rendering of the name 
Varingo! He was afraid to do so. 

He did not want to know for certain that these 
two people who had fascinated him almost against 
his will, who had admitted him so frankly into such 
a charming friendship, were none other than the 
Roland and Tory Waring for whose sakes Damaris 


GOLDEN DISHES 


73 


had sacrificed him by clinging so tenaciously to the 
prospect of old Miss Packe’s money. So he de¬ 
liberately followed the tactics of the ostrich. As 
long as he did not know he could play at being 
blind to facts, the while he was well aware that his 
head was merely hidden in the sand and that at 
any moment he might be obliged to jerk it out and 
face the truth. 

“This, I suppose, is what the Pixy would call 
‘English hypocrisy/ ” he told himself ruefully. “But 
I don’t really know. I can’t be certain. It would be 
too ridiculous a coincidence.” 

He put aside misgivings and allowed himself to 
enjoy whole-heartedly the whimsicalities of these 
unconscious usurpers. 

One day Tory volunteered to take him by a short 
cut to the house of Benedetto, the charcoal-burner: 
a steep climb on a hot day. The girl clambered over 
boulder and fallen tree-trunk with the ease of a 
mountain goat, while Tempest toiled after. Now 
and then she gave him her hand round a ledge of 
rock or when they had to leap one of the many 
torrents that poured down the hillside to the lake 
below, and always he was surprised at its steel- 
strong grip. 

“Courage, poor gipsy-man!” she cried, as they 
reached a broader beaten pathway. “The house is 
just round the corner.” 

As she spoke there was a sound of running feet. 
A man rushed wildly through the trees towards them, 
his clothes disordered, terror written in the pallor 
of his face. 

“It’s Beppe!” Tory cried. “What can have hap¬ 
pened? Oh&, Giuseppe!” 


74 


GOLDEN DISHES 


The man stopped, swerving abruptly when he 
saw them. In an instant Tory was at his side, 
shaking him by the arm. 

“What have you done? What has happened? 
Are the carabinieri after you? Tell me at once.” 

The man, a pitiable creature despite his undeni¬ 
able good looks, with streaks of damp hair falling 
over his glistening forehead, tried to twist himself 
free, but the girl’s grip held. 

“No, you don’t,” said Tempest, catching him by 
the other arm. “Not until you’ve told the signorina 
what she wants to know.” 

“It’s not the carabinieri yet. It’s that she-devil 
Assunta. She would kill me, that one, for a scudo. 
Let me go, signor, for the love of heaven, before she 
sets the carabinieri on me. Let me go!” 

He freed himself with a sudden jerk and went 
crashing down through the undergrowth before they 
could stop him. Tempest sprang forward to follow 
him, but Tory caught him by the arm as she had 
caught Beppe. 

“Let him go, Mr. Tempus. You’d never catch 
him. He knows this place like the palm of his 
hand. We’d better go on to the house and see what 
has happened.” 

Round a bend in a clearing stood the little brown- 
roofed house with its arched stable and woodshed 
below and rough flight of stone steps leading up to 
the storey where Benedetto and Assunta lived. 

Tory hastened her steps. 

“Has he killed Benedetto, I wonder?” she 
breathed. “From his own account Assunta seems 
to be alive and kicking!” 

At the sound of their voices a brown-faced, black- 


GOLDEN DISHES 


75 


eyed woman with gold rings in her ears and a scarlet 
kerchief knotted round her throat, rushed from the 
house on to the steps brandishing a wooden stool. 

“Aha, is it thou, maleducato? . . .” she began 
tempestuously, then stopped with a sudden change 
of tone. “Dio, it’s the Signorina Vitoria!” 

“What has happened?” called Tory. “We met 
Beppe flying through the wood as if the devil were 
after him.” 

“The devil is after him,” cried Assunta vindic¬ 
tively. “He will catch him by the leg sooner or 
later, the great ladrone! When my Benedetto, as 
was his right, began to beat me, what must that 
Beppe do but interfere! Out comes his revolver, 
maledictions on it! It goes off in the struggle and 
Benedetto falls to the ground! I, believing him 
dead, beat the miscreant Beppe with this stool. 
Woe is me that I did not dash his wicked brains 
out!” 

“But Benedetto? . . .” Tory thrust into the tor¬ 
rent of words. 

“Ahi, Benedetto! ... He has but fallen over the 
broom-handle that lay on the floor, and become a 
little stunned. . . . He will be as a fish in water 
now that Beppe has gone. He will beat me no more, 
signorina. All will go on its own feet now!” Flash¬ 
ing eyes and teeth enhanced the sense of drama, 
accentuating its happy ending. 

“That is well, Assunta. A rivederci!” 

Tory drew Tempest away. “I’m afraid you won’t 
get your information from that particular com- 
munista. The Yankee Giuseppe is ‘beautiful and 
finished’ as far as the Benedetto household is con¬ 
cerned. You must seek elsewhere for your copy, 


76 GOLDEN DISHES 

though I fancy that the communisti are tolerably 
shy birds.” 

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got plenty of stuff for 
my next article,” Tempest answered. 

“If Beppe thinks that he has killed Benedetto he 
will be off to Milan by the next train,” mused Tory. 
“Assunta will now make a greater door-mat of 
herself than ever and it will be so bad for Benedetto. 
These women! . . . Aren’t they queer?” 

“They?” queried Tempest rather pointedly. 

Tory swung round to face him, scrutinized him 
closely and laughed. “You can’t mean me?” 

“Why not?” 

“I’m not a door-mat.” 

“Oh! Aren’t you?” 

“I’d never be any man’s door-mat,” she flashed. 

“Wouldn’t you?” 

“You mean Nutkin. Oh, you are silly. I’m not 
his door-mat. I’m his—his guardian angel!” 

“Well . . . he’s lucky!” said Tempest deliber¬ 
ately. 

“Yes. Isn’t he?” she answered in perfect serious¬ 
ness. “I don’t know what he’d do if he hadn’t me 
to look after him.” 

“Suppose he married again?” 

“Married again?” Tory echoed. Her face paled 
under its tan. Her eyes narrowed. “How can you 
make such a revolting, such a horrible suggestion? 
He has never thought of marrying again, never even 
wanted to. It’s beastly of you to say such a thing.” 

“What a storm in a teacup! All raised by a 
perfectly harmless question.” 

She stamped her foot on the beaten path. 

“It’s not harmless. It’s odious. Detestable. I 


GOLDEN DISHES 77 

can’t bear it. I believe I’d kill any one that came 
between Nutkin and me!” 

Tempest was in a queer mood. Her passion 
roused him to experiment further. 

“Suppose you married yourself? Stranger things 
have happened, you know.” 

She rounded on him with a superb gesture. 

“Do you imagine for an instant that I’d leave 
Nutkin for any man? Why, there isn’t a man in 
the world who is fit to tie his shoe-strings!” 

“You may think differently some day.” . . . Yes, 
her father was right. She was not awake yet. 

“Differently?” Scorn rang in the clear young 
voice. “Oh, you are being stupid today, Mr. 
Tempus.” 

Conversation languished until they reached the 
“Villino Gobbo.” Waring rushed out to meet them, 
waving a letter in his hand. A new Waring, illumined 
by some inner fire of delight. 

“News, news, wonderful news! ” he cried excitedly. 

Tory ran to him and slipped her hand through 
his arm, casting a defiant glance at Tempest as she 
did so. She rubbed her cheek coaxingly against her 
father’s shoulder. 

“What’s the news, Nutkin? Another picture 
sold?” 

“No,” he answered, holding the letter above her 
head so that she should not see what it was about, 
teasing her with eyes that shone. “Guess, my 
Pixy.” 

“What then? I’m no good at guessing.” 

“A fairy-tale come true.” 

“Oh, Nutkin, tell me.” 

He waved a slip of paper at her. “What do you 


78 


GOLDEN DISHES 


think of this? A draft on the Banca d’ltalia for 
£100! Thousands of lire!” 

“Nutkin, not really! Let me look. Yes. It is, 
truly. Oh, where, where did you get it?” 

“Frocks and frills for you, feasts of body and 
soul for me! . . . Pixy-thing, let us dance the can¬ 
can! . . . England, my England!” he shouted wildly. 
He stuffed the precious letter into his pocket and 
held out his hand. 

Tempest stood aside, forgotten, while the two 
danced a mad, fantastic whirl in front of the crazy 
Villino, whose glittering eyes squinted apprehension. 

Suddenly Tory stopped, checked by a disconcert¬ 
ing remembrance. 

“Nutkin,” she cried suspiciously, arresting him in 
the middle of a beautiful pirouette. “Why, England, 
my England?” 

“Because the dragon is dead,” he cried, “and the 
little sister has inherited all its treasure. She is free 
at last. It is she who has sent me this hundred 
pounds. She is going to buy back my mother’s old 
enchanted house in the Forest, and she wants us 
—you and me, my Pixy-thing—to go and live there 
as soon as it is ready!” 

Tory’s vivid face clouded. The fire vanished from 
her eyes. Her brows drew together. 

“England!” she repeated slowly. It seemed to 
the forgotten Tempest as if there were distrust and 
suspicion in her tone. “But you don’t really want to 
go and live in England, Nutkin?” 

“It has been my dream for years,” Waring 
answered decisively. “Don’t be so silly, Pixy. 
You’ll simply love it when you get there. Won’t 
she, Tempus?” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


79 


“I don’t see that we need drag Mr. Tempus into 
our discussion,” said Tory, with a sudden cold de¬ 
tachment. “I don’t think we’ll ask you to stay on 
this evening, either, Mr. Tempus. If Nutkin and I 
quarrel it would bore you horribly.” 

“Why should we quarrel?” Waring protested. 
“We never do. Besides, there are a thousand things 
I want to ask Tempus.” 

“You can ask them another day,” said Tory 
firmly. Her eyes met Tempest’s without relenting. 

He was dismissed. There was no doubt about 
that. But he covered his retreat as best he could. 

“I ought to be getting back in any case,” he said. 
“I’ve got to finish an article for tomorrow’s post. 
Congratulations on your good luck.” 

His head was well out of the sand now. He 
smiled rather grimly as he reflected how little Roland 
Waring suspected that he owed this stroke of luck 
chiefly to him. 

“I thought we should have celebrated,” began 
Waring, with the ruefulness of a disappointed child. 

“We can celebrate tomorrow,” said Tory firmly. 
“I’m sure Mr. Tempus understands that we have 
heaps of things to discuss.” 

“Of course,” said Tempest. 

Her eyes challenged. “Now am I a door-mat?” 

What his answered she could not read. She 
turned away her head with an angry jerk. A queer 
hot resentment pricked Tempest as he went slowly 
through the woods to Mergozzo. 

He felt sore at being thus ruthlessly thrust from 
the charmed circle of “Villino Gobbo”; almost as 
sore as he had been at his untimely ousting from 
his rightful place in the heart of Damaris Packe. 


80 GOLDEN DISHES 

The two resentments met and mingled in a bitter 
stream. 

His mood was morose as he struck into the narrow 
twisting streets of the little town, where the painted 
houses almost met overhead, showing but a strip 
of blue sky above. 

Past the little, low-browed shops, the open door¬ 
ways, he went, on to the Piazza where the “Black 
Eagle” stood. Children played beneath the chestnut- 
trees, screaming as the swifts screamed about the 
high square belfry. Old men smoked thin black 
cigars on the stone benches: women knitted and 
chatted: great cream oxen lumbered with slow im¬ 
perturbability across the pavement of the Piazza, 
drawing great logs of wood. 

A wine-cart with a team of mules stood outside 
the door of the Albergo. Their bells made a thin, 
musical jingling. The sound followed Tempest as 
he went through the archway and into the little 
garden behind the inn, where, under a vine-wreathed 
pergola, he usually had his meals. He sat down 
heavily beneath the shady canopy, from which 
already grapes hung in pale green clusters. 

“Ohb , Maria!” he called, knocking on the table. 

Maria, the deep-bosomed wench who waited on 
him, came running from the house, bearing a letter 
between swarthy thumb and finger. 

“An English letter for the signor,” she cried 
excitedly. 

For a moment his pulses quickened. . . . Had 
Damaris written to him as well as to her brother? 
No. . . . The letter was only from his cousin, 
Elinor Blaikie. He opened it and read with curl¬ 
ing lip and hardening jaw. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


81 


“I have not inquired too closely into the cause of 
the little misunderstanding between you and Dam¬ 
ans/’ Mrs. Blaikie wrote, “but that it is only a trivial 
one I am quite convinced. Therefore, for both your 
sakes, let me urge you to make it up as soon as 
possible. Miss Packe is dead. She has left Dam- 
aris between three and four thousand a year, abso¬ 
lutely unconditionally. The dear girl has not the 
faintest idea of the value of money, never having had 
the handling of any. Now, if ever, it is important 
that she should have some one with a head on his 
shoulders by her side. Therefore, I beg of you to 
come home at once before any unscrupulous people 
get hold of her. She has needy relatives on the 
Continent, I know. They will be down on her like 
a swarm of locusts if you don’t take care. 

Such was the burden of Elinor Blaikie’s warning. 

She did not realize, in her zeal for pulling strings, 
that this time she had jerked too violently and only 
a limp end remained in her hand. 

Tempest swore under his breath. 

“Damn Elinor’s interference!” he muttered. 
“Damaris likes locusts. Let her have ’em if she 
wants to. She prefers them to me, anyhow. She 
made no secret of that. . . . Why, I should be the 
locust if I went back to her now! What would 
she think? That I couldn’t resist the lure of that 
beastly money, I suppose. . . . What a fortune! 

. . . Well, Waring will enjoy it, for a time at any 
rate. But what about Tory?” 

He thought of the Pixy dancing on the lawn, 
tackling the terror-stricken Beppe, flashing defiance 
at himself, and smiled. 

“Damaris will have her hands full with the War- 


82 


GOLDEN DISHES 


ing family/’ he mused. “Well, let her! . . . She’s 
made her choice. She must abide by it.” 

Deep in his heart was a very human thrill of 
satisfaction at the thought that Damaris, in her 
folly, might have sown the seed of a harvest that 
would make somewhat difficult reaping. It over¬ 
powered tenderness, even resentment, at the moment. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


EMPEST determined not to be in too 
great a hurry to return to “Villino 
Gobbo.” Of late he had spent his 
mornings with the Warings by the lake, 
all three bathing together, or talking, 
or drowsing on the shore as the spirit moved them. 
But this morning he would not go, although he had 
finished his article long before post hour. 

He plunged through the upper pathways of the 
wood, avoiding all the known tracks, and presently, 
descending, found himself on the green plain of 
Fonda Toce, where the sun-browned mowers, with 
wet faces, and hairy, knotted arms, were mowing 
the meadows in silver swathes beneath the long 
rows of tall tremulous poplars. 

It was all flat, tame, dull to Tempest’s eyes. He 
was blind to the beauty of the mowers’ motion, to 
the cool greys and greens of the landscape, relieved 
here and there by a splash of scarlet or yellow 
kerchief. 

Before long his feet instinctively turned back to 
the woods again, to the winding path that led by 
mossy boulder, dripping rock and branching fern 
to the little low-browed shabby villa at the lake’s 
edge. 

“After all, they said they would celebrate today,” 
he told himself. “It was certainly a tacit invitation. 
They would only think I am offended if I stay away. 
I shouldn’t like them to do that.” 

There was an unusual stillness about the place 
83 













84 GOLDEN DISHES 

as he approached. It seemed asleep in the after¬ 
noon light. 

The hall door was closed: the deck-chairs nowhere 
to be seen. The house wore a forsaken look, though 
the bougainvillea sent its purple torrents over the 
porch and the roses tumbled in the neglected garden 
more riotously than ever. 

Quickly Tempest made his way to the back. Here 
there was none of that disconcerting quietude. The 
old grey cat dozed as usual in the open doorway. 
Some one bustled about within. He tapped at the 
door. 

“Caterina!” 

“Ah\, the signor!” She came quickly to the door. 

“I have nothing in my pocket today, Caterina,” 
he began jestingly. “I left Mergozzo early-” 

“Nothing is needed today, signor.” 

“Ah, it is a festa, then?” 

“No, signor. There is no festa today.” 

“But I thought-” 

“The signor does not know then?” The woman 
shot a quick curious glance at him. 

“Know what?” 

“That the Signor Varingo and the Signorina Vit- 
toria are gone!” 

“Gone!” Tempest echoed, astonished. 

“But yes, signor. They went by the early train 
this morning to Baveno, to the bank there. Then 
on to Paris, the signor said. He has come in for 
a fortune. Thousands of lire! Did not the signor 
know?” 

Tempest recovered himself with an effort. The 
woman’s news had the effect of a sudden plunge into 
cold water. Gone—without a word of warning after 




GOLDEN DISHES 85 

all these days of happy camaraderie! It was almost 
incredible. 

“I did not realize that they were going quite 
so soon, Caterina,” he answered. “Did—the signor 
leave any word, any message for me?” 

“But yes, signor. I have the pumpkin head to 
forget it! There is a letter which the signor said I 
was to be sure to give you. Wait for one little 
moment.” She disappeared through the kitchen 
door, leaving Tempest to the company of the grey 
cat and the winking copper utensils on the walls. 
In a moment she was back with a folded note in her 
hand. “Ecco, signor!” 

Tempest untwisted the note. It had evidently 
been written in a hurry. 

“O Tempus ineluctable!” it ran—“It is we who 
flee and not you! Paris first with the purse of For- 
tunatus, then London—before the plunge into the 
enchanted woods. When you come back to revisit 
the glimpses of the moon let us made rendezvous at 
the Coq d’Or. Send me a line to old Pilkington of 
the Temple when you’re in town again. He handles 
the pittance on which Pixy and I subsist. Apropos, 
it is she who drags me away to Paris thus sud¬ 
denly. The lure of chiffons, I suppose! What mere 
man can hope to read the riddle of the Sphinx? 

“A rivederci! 

“Yours, 

“Roland Waring.” 


“Now, am I a door-mat?” 

The childish challenge seemed to be flung at 
Tempest between every line of her father’s letter. 


86 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Tempest felt as if he wanted to shake the provok¬ 
ing creature. Then he had a sudden revelation. 
She had run away from him because she was afraid 
that he might instil some of his hateful revolutionary 
ideas about marriage into her precious Nutkin’s head. 

“Jolly good thing, too, if he did marry!” Tempest 
thought hotly. “A woman of the fluffy type who 
would insist on his dancing attendance on her! 
Tory spoils him. Damaris will continue the process. 
Probably, if he married, the other woman would 
only put the lid on it and spoil him worse than 
either.” 

He shrugged his shoulders. He still felt angry, 
and rather as if he had been slapped in the face. 
It was not a pleasant sensation, nor one conducive 
to dignity. 

But Caterina was looking at him with a half- 
amused, half-wondering expression in her velvet- 
black eyes. He must say something. He felt in his 
pocket. 

“You will miss the signori,” he said tentatively, 
slipping a twenty-lira note into her hand. “Thank 
you for many kindnesses, Caterina.” 

She burst into profuse gratitude. “It is nothing, 
nothing, for so distinguished, so noble a signor!” 

“What will you do now?” Tempest asked her. 

“If God wills I shall marry Paolo, and we shall 
live here at the Villa Mariana and take care of it 
until the Signor Ferucci—the merchant in Milan 
who owns the place—lets it again. Would the signor 
care to take it? I could make him as comfortable as 
if he slept between two pillows.” 

Tempest thanked her, but waved the suggestion 
aside. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


87 


He felt that he could not bear to stay at the 
“Villino Gobbo” now. He would be haunted by too 
many ghosts: unusual little ghosts, of gay laughter, 
of merry jest and nonsense, of dancing feet, of 
happy, careless inconsequence, of all that this sud¬ 
den sweet intimacy had meant to the lonely, sore- 
hearted man. 

“It would delight me to put myself in your care,” 
he assured the flattered Caterina, “but I am leaving 
Mergozzo myself almost immediately.” 

“That is a thousand pities!” sighed Caterina. 

Then, as he made his adieux and went: “He is a 
little old for the Signorina Vittoria,” she mused. 
“But what of that? He is straight as a poplar, and 
he certainly has holes in his hands where money is 

concerned-” She stroked her twenty-lira note 

lovingly. “He is hot for her, too. She was wise to 
run away, the little one. It is well said, ‘Keep the 
bone and the dog will follow thee.’ Ecco! She is 
not every man’s eating, that wild one! . . . But the 
English have strange tastes.” 

Tempest skirted the house and went down to the 
water’s edge. He stood between the black spears 
of the sentinel cypresses for a moment, looking at 
the melting evening colours on the lake and the 
flushed mountains rising benignantly above it. Then 
he turned for a last glance at the “Villino Gobbo.” 

The setting sun slanted across its mildewed face, 
but the mocking eyes squinted no longer. They 
were blind, empty of light. Caterina had shuttered 
them. The house looked dead: a skull, with the 
riotously living red-purple of the bougainvillea 
wreathed mockingly about its brows. 

Tempest turned away with a little involuntary 



88 


GOLDEN DISHES 


shiver. He did not want to stay there any longer. 
The place had a sudden menace now that the care¬ 
free human life had ebbed away from it. 

Was it only this time yesterday that he and the 
Pixy had descended on the “Villino Gobbo” to find 
it quick with the stir of expectancy? Only twenty- 
four hours since the Signor Varingo and the Sig- 
norina Vittoria had danced their wild fandango upon 
the untidy terrace? 

A little wind, suddenly rising from the lake, 
ruffled the waters to an unexpected lapping and swept 
through the bushes like a sigh. 

For an instant Tempest had the fantastic feeling 
that Varingo and Vittoria were dead. 

“They are dead, too,” he assured himself. “I 
shall never see them again. Roland Waring and 
Tory have taken their places, and I don’t suppose I 
shall ever see them again either! . . . After all the 
fuss she made of her ‘Mr. Tempus’ she might have 
sent me a line to say good-bye.” 

Suddenly he remembered her father’s assertion 
that she could not spell: at once excuse and explana¬ 
tion of her pricking silence. 

Tempest laughed. 

Next day he left Mergozzo for Bologna. 


CHAPTER NINE 



HEN it is all settled,” said Damaris 
Packe. “Paraded is really mine?” 

Her voice quivered with excitement. 
Her eyes shone. She clasped her black- 
gloved hands tightly beneath the desk 
so that Mr. Pilkington, of Pilkington, Swansea and 
Bradell, should not see their trembling. 

Swansea and Bradell were now but names. 

Damaris wondered if they had ever really existed, 
or, if so, if Mr. Pilkington had gradually absorbed 
them into his own capacious being. 

He was a tall man and portly, with ruddy clean¬ 
shaven face and the strangest eyes Damaris had ever 
seen. At first glance they seemed light and colour¬ 
less; then all at once their brightness grew dark and 
piercing. It seemed to penetrate outer husk and 
inner reserve, to bore for one’s naked soul in dis¬ 
concerting fashion. But it was only occasionally 
that Mr. Pilkington turned on that searchlight gaze. 
At other times his eyes were grey as rain and as 
undisturbing. 

“Yes. Paraded is really yours,” Mr. Pilkington 
returned, tapping a parchment on the desk in front 
of him. “There are the title-deeds. You under¬ 
stand that they refer merely to the house and 
grounds. The broad acres that belonged to your 
mother when she was Victoria Clyffard, have gone 
long since. Two husbands, each, unfortunately, with 
varying tastes in speculation, saw to that. All the 
89 









90 


GOLDEN DISHES 


land was mortgaged by the time your step-brother, 
Roland Waring, came in for the property. Only 
this”—he tapped the title-deeds again—“remained 
to him to dispose of. You’ve got the place rather 
at a bargain, Miss Packe. The owner, Mr. Morley, 
was glad to sell it at our price.” 

“Oh!” breathed Damaris. “Don’t you think you 
ought to have given him whatever he paid Roland 
for it?” 

Mr. Pilkington smiled pityingly. “Scarcely. 
That’s not business. Buy cheap and sell dear is a 
sound business axiom. The Morleys have not lived 
there for two years now. They were glad to get rid 
of the place.” 

“Money means very little to me as yet. I scarcely 
realize-” Damaris began deprecatingly. 

“But you must realize, my dear young lady. I 
am here to help you to do so. Anything in my 
power-” 

“You are very kind,” she interrupted rather 
breathlessly. . . . Paraded was hers at last. That 
was all that mattered. 

She rose. She wanted to be alone with her be¬ 
wildering knowledge, her dream come true. 

“What do you intend to do about Greystones?” 

“Greystones?” she echoed, puzzled. 

“Yes. That is your property absolutely. Do 
you wish to sell it or let it, or keep it for your own 
use?” 

“Oh, no, no,” cried Damaris to the last sugges¬ 
tion. “Sell it, please, Mr. Pilkington. I don’t want 
to live there any longer than I can help.” 

“Ah, then you intend to reside permanently at 
Paraded, I presume?” 


GOLDEN DISHES 91 

“Yes. Yes. I suppose so. I haven’t made any 
definite plans yet.” 

“There is no hurry. No hurry at all, my dear 
young lady. Just give me your instructions and I 
shall see that they are carried out to the best of my 
ability. Will you not sit down again for a moment? 
There was one point you mentioned in your letter 
which we have not as yet discussed. You wished 
to do something for your step-brother, Roland 
Waring?” 

Damaris sat down again and leaned forward 
eagerly. “Yes. I want to have him and his little 
girl to live with me at Paradell.” 

“Indeed?” said Mr. Pilkington. His eyebrows 
rose questioningly towards the bald dome of his head. 
“Do you think that is quite wise, my dear Miss 
Packe? Do you not think that an allowance, as 
generous as you care to make it, of course, would 
meet the case?” 

“Not at all,” answered Damaris with a decision 
for which Mr. Pilkington was scarcely prepared. 
“Paradell was Roland’s once. It is mine now, there¬ 
fore doubly his. Where should he find a home if 
not with me? I have sent him money to come back 
to England. I am simply counting the hours until 
they are here.” 

“In that case, naturally, there is no more to be 
said. Greystones is a very desirable residence. We 
shall probably be able to sell it for as much as, if 
not more, than we gave for Paradell. That, Miss 
Packe, is good business.” He smiled benignly. 

“Excellent!” Damaris smiled back. “When 
shall I be able to go and live at Paradell?” 

“It’s quite habitable at the present moment, but 


92 


GOLDEN DISHES 


you will probably want to have it re-decorated and 
modernized before you settle down there. Harrods 
would probably-” 

“I don’t want to hand it over to a big firm. I 
want to see it for myself and plan out what I want 
done to it. Have I enough money to do as I like?” 

“Short of rebuilding the whole place, yes.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to rebuild. I 'don’t want too 
big a place. I want to make a home, to realize my 

dream-house-” she stopped abruptly, her eyes 

like blue stars, her cheeks flushed to a most becoming 
rose. 

“Waring will have but a short innings,” thought 
Mr. Pilkington. “When she’s really well dressed and 
has a little more poise, she’ll be a deuced attractive 
woman.” Aloud he said: “Then you don’t want me 
to communicate with a firm of decorators for you?” 

Damaris shook her head and smiled to take the 
edge off her refusal. “No, thank you. Mrs. Blaikie, 
our doctor’s wife, has a friend who is an architect. 
He set up for himself in Winchester when the war 
was over, but he finds it uphill work to get estab¬ 
lished. I am going to ask his advice about the old 
house. He may know of some local people who 
would be able to do anything that is necessary.” 

Mr. Pilkington looked dubious. “Much better to 
get some well-known firm,” he murmured. “It 
doesn’t always pay to help these lame dogs over 
stiles.” 

“Oh, but that’s just what I want to do,” cried 
Damaris. “What does it matter whether it pays 
or not? You see, I know what it is to be poor 

myself. I never-” She stopped suddenly, 

checked by her loyalty to Aunt Charlotte. “I’d 





GOLDEN DISHES 


93 


rather help the little people than swell the coffers 
of the big,” she said, rather wistfully. “That’s what 
money is for, isn’t it? You don’t mind, do you, 
Mr. Pilkington?” 

“It’s no business of mine, Miss Packe. None 
whatsoever.” 

“But you’re not pleased, all the same,” Damaris 
went on with a flutter of her dark lashes. Then 
she said suddenly, “This money—I don’t want it 
for myself. Honestly, I don’t. I shall only justify 
my possession of it to myself by doing all I can 
with it. By trying to make other people happy. 
. . . Oh, dear, that sounds rather priggish, I’m 
afraid, and I really don’t mean to be a prig.” She 
laughed suddenly. 

It was an unusual sound to hear in that depress- 
ingly respectable place of stiff furniture, Turkey 
carpet and japanned deed-boxes, and it stirred a 
faint echo of the forgotten past in the cobwebbed 
recesses of Mr. Pilkington’s memory. 

“I don’t think any one could accuse you of prig¬ 
gishness, my dear Miss Packe,” he began. “Yours 
is a most laudable, if quixotic-” 

“Ah, Mr. Pilkington, what sort of place would the 
world be without its Quixotes?” Damaris cried, fear¬ 
less now in her new exhilarating sense of power. 
“Have your dreams never come true?” 

“I never dream,” answered Mr. Pilkington, skil¬ 
fully turning a sigh into a cough. “It was a habit 
of which I cured myself in my early boyhood.” 

“But you did dream then,” Damaris pursued. 
“Your dreams can’t have come true. What were 
they? Do tell me.” 

“One was to have a charming client come to my 



94 


GOLDEN DISHES 


office and talk delightful nonsense to me,” answered 
Mr. Pilkington, with an odd intonation. 

Damaris laughed and blushed rosier than ever. 

“Pm sorry, Mr. Pilkington,” she said, rising. “I’ve 
no business to waste your valuable time like this.” 
She held out her hand. 

“You mustn’t forget that you’re paying for it, 
my dear young lady,” he reminded her dryly. 

“That will be a pleasure,” said Damaris prettily. 

“I’m afraid the majority of my clients would not 
agree with you,” returned Mr. Pilkington. “By the 
way, Miss Packe, you’ll want a car when you go to 
live in the country.” 

Damaris’s eyes sparkled. “A car? Shall I really? 
How wonderful! My thoughts only ran to a fat 
pony like the one I had long ago.” 

“Much water has flowed under the bridge since 
then. You will have neighbours. The county 
people will call on you. You will need a suitable 
equipage in which to return their visits.” 

“Oh, dear! That sounds very alarming,” she 
exclaimed. “Why should the county people want 
to call on me?” 

Mr. Pilkington permitted himself the ghost of a 
smile. 

“You will be one of them. You mustn’t forget 
that. Your mother was a Clyffard of Paradell. 
The Forest people are very conservative. That 
sort of thing still counts at Thornycross. Do you 
remember any of the residents there?” 

Damaris wrinkled her brows. A black cloud lay 
upon her memory of her last days at Paradell, but on 
the other side of it, surely, was a vista of sunny 
hours. She spoke musingly. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


95 


“There was the vicar, Mr. Brent. He was kind, I 
remember. He used to give me strawberries out of 
his garden. He had a pet toad called Abinadab. 
. . . There were the Okendens, Major and Mrs. 
Okenden. They had a lot of little black dogs who 
used to rush out at one and bark dreadfully. I was 
always afraid of them. Major Okenden was rather 
like the little dogs, black and fierce. He used to 
bark, too. . . . And then—then there was Lady 
Salmarais. She had a son, a boy called—called 
Hubert. He was a big boy, nearly as old as Roland. 
I didn’t like him much . . . and the Broadleighs. 
. . . There were children there, two boys and a 
girl. They used to come over to Paradell to play, I 
remember. . . . Are any of those people still at 
Thornycross?” 

“They are all there, apparently, except the Broad- 
leigh boys, who were both killed in the war, and the 
girl who is married and has gone to India with her 
husband. The vicar is still there and the Salmarais 
family. Hubert is Sir Hubert now. He came in for 
the title a few years ago.” 

“Are there any young people in the neighbour¬ 
hood?” 

“I really don’t know, Miss Packe. I should think 
you would have plenty of society, though.” 

“I wasn’t thinking of myself. I was thinking of 
my niece, Victoria. It will be dull for her if she has 
no young people to play about with.” 

“She is sure to find some, though as a rule the 
younger folk do not care to settle down in the 
Forest. It is the older people who cling to the old 
places.” 

Damaris found something rather touching in this 


96 


GOLDEN DISHES 


idea, then something depressing. She had spent all 
her youth in the society of a very old person, and 
with this exhilarating new sense of freedom she 
longed for more youthful companionship—for a 
taste of joyous, care-free life at last. She had been 
a prisoner for so long. Was the Forest going to 
hem her in, too? 

She shook off the absurd thought. Why, she 
would have Roland and Tory with her, laughter- 
lovers, gay, heedless of convention. They would 
bring a breath of the free outer world into the old 
dreaming house, into her curbed and thwarted life. 
With them she would recapture the joys of her lost 
youth. . . . After all, thirty-two was not so great an 
age, especially in these rushing, modern days! If it 
were not for her silly grey hair she would almost 
pass as a girl. . . . She was suddenly conscious of 
Mr. Pilkington’s pondering glance. 

“About that car-” she began hastily. 

“If you bring me a list of the lame-dog motor- 
salesmen you desire to benefit I shall do my best to 
see that you are not unduly exploited.” 

“I think I had better let you choose it. Get a 
good big one, please, that will hold plenty of people.” 

“What about a nice yellow char-a-banc ?” sug¬ 
gested Mr. Pilkington, with the nearest approach 
to a joke which he had made for years. 

“We may come to that later,” Damaris smiled. 

Mr. Pilkington opened his lips as if to emit a 
warning, then closed them again. 

When she had gone the office seemed dingier than 
ever. Mr. Pilkington walked back to his desk and 
tapped the title-deeds of Paraded musingly. 

“What’s the use of warning a woman? She will 



GOLDEN DISHES 


97 


have to buy her experience as we all do. . . . Fatal 
thing to give a female the handling of money. . . . 
Roland Waring will help her to spend it, though, 
if he has any of his father’s extravagance. ... I 
wish she had a decent man to look after her. . . . 
Well, they’ll be buzzing round her soon enough, in 
all probability, but if I know my Lady Salmarais 
her precious Hubert will have first innings. A nice 
little place like Paraded and an unencumbered three 
thousand a year is not to be despised, even by a 
Salmarais!” 


CHAPTER TEN 


HRISTOPHER BROOKE was not quite 
the lame dog that Mr. Pilkington had 
imagined him. He was a big, fair, 
rather slangy young man, well set up 
and distinctly good-looking, in spite of 
a trick of blinking his dusty-looking eyelashes, a 
habit due to his extreme shyness where women were 



concerned. 

His bashfulness was forgotten now as he explored 
the neglected rooms of Paraded with Damaris Packe 
and Mrs. Blaikie. 

“My hat, this is a topping little place, Miss 
Packe,” he said enthusiastically, as he opened one 
of the French windows in the long, low drawing-room 
and went out on to the flagged terrace which led 
by a flight of steps down to a green pleasance in 
the middle of which was set the lily-pond of Dam- 
aris’s childhood. 

Reeds and thick green water-weed jostled the 
fat lily-pads, amid which silver-white lily-cups 
already opened disdainful golden hearts to the sun. 
The tall bamboo clumps were overgrown almost 
to rankness; the summer irises which had been such 
a feature of the water-garden were practically 
choked out of existence. The stone bench by the 
cedar was mossy and dirt-encrusted, as were the 
crumbling steps, surmounted by two great lichened 
balls of stone. 

“Dear me, how shockingly this place has been 
98 









GOLDEN DISHES 


99 


neglected!” said Mrs. Blaikie, looking distastefully 
at the green riot of weed and flower, her trim mind 
shocked by the wantoning luxuriance. “It will take 
years to get it into anything like order.” 

Damaris looked round with a prick of dismay. 
The old place seemed to have shrunk. The paint 
was blistered, the rooms dusty and festooned with 
cobwebs. The rose garden was a wilderness, the 
beech-tunnel so overgrown that one could not even 
walk through it. It all looked forlorn, decayed. 

Brooke thrust his hands in his pockets and faced 
Mrs. Blaikie, blinking rapidly. 

“Nothing of the sort, Mrs. Blaikie. You won’t 
know the place in a month. The woodwork’s top¬ 
ping, the roof as sound as a bell. Just look at those 
corking red-brown tiles! They don’t make ’em 
like that nowadays. The gardens have gone to seed 
a bit, but they’ll soon get straight again. A pea¬ 
cock, Miss Packe.” He turned to Damaris, almost 
stammering in his excitement. “A peacock there 
on that stone wall! Wouldn’t he look topping? 
And you, in white on the terrace with a blue scarf or 
something. What a picture! . . . Sorry, I didn’t 
mean to be personal.” He smiled and reddened, 
suddenly embarrassed. 

Damaris smiled back at the young man. His 
enthusiasm warmed her, his excitement communi¬ 
cated itself to her in a little thrill. Her heart had 
dropped like a stone in a well at Mrs. Blaikie’s 
raised eyebrows and disapproving nose. Her mouth 
was pursed as she said: “My dear Damaris,. Grey- 
stones is an infinitely better house than this. So 
many modern conveniences- — Don’t you think it 
would be foolish-?” 


100 GOLDEN DISHES 

Damaris was seized with a wild desire to shriek: 
“But I don’t want modern conveniences. I don’t 
want Greystones. I don’t want to stay in a place 
where I’ve been buried alive. I want to come here 
and live, live, live!” Aloud she merely said: “Grey¬ 
stones is smug! I like this wild little place infinitely 
better. It was my home, remember.” 

She felt sorry now that she had brought Mrs. 
Blaikie, who did not fit in, somehow. She would 
have been happier alone with this enthusiastic young 
man, who saw things as she did, whose eyes were 
not blinded by the cobwebs to the possibilities of 
the place. 

“I’m glad you see pictures here, Mr. Brooke,” 
she said gratefully. “My brother is an artist, so I 
hope that he will see them too.” 

“He’s bound to. Why, the house is a picture in 
itself.” Brooke waved a hand towards the old mel¬ 
low brick walls with their flat, white-painted win¬ 
dows, now almost hidden by a tangle of jasmine 
and climbing roses, which rioted up to the red- 
brown roof with its jutting eaves and moulded white 
cornice. 

“You will have it thoroughly modernized, of 
course,” said Mrs. Blaikie, dubiously. 

“As far as is compatible with the character of 
the place,” returned Damaris firmly. “Too much 
modernity would spoil it. It’s Queen Anne, you 
know.” 

“And a jolly good specimen, too,” said Brooke. 
“When it’s had a good coat of paint—white—inside 
and out, you won’t recognize it. I’m not sure that 
the panelling in the dining-room isn’t oak which 
some vandal has painted. If it is we’ll get the stuff 


GOLDEN DISHES 


101 


burned off. If it isn’t we’ll have it re-painted— 
white, I think you said, Miss Packe?” 

“No, I didn’t, but I think I should like it.” 
Damaris smiled again in friendly fashion. 

“Who ever heard of a white dining-room?” de¬ 
manded Mrs. Blaikie. “Brown or red, or even 
orange, if you want to be modern, are the colours 
for a dining-room.” 

“But I don’t want to be modern,” exclaimed 
Damaris. “If the panelling isn’t oak I’ll certainly 
have it painted white. Think how delightful the 
old blue china and the silver candelabra will look 
against it.” 

“And deep blue curtains of Florentine brocade 
and blue coverings for your chairs,” said Brooke. 

“And white for the drawing-room too,” Damaris 
answered antiphonally. “With fascinating chintzes 
and cushions in sweet-pea colourings, rose and 
mauve and blue and palest pinks and greens.” 

“My dear Damaris! No one uses those delicate 
shades nowadays.” 

“I’m never going to have dark walls or dingy 
colours about me again,” cried Damaris, intoxicated 
with the thought of her plenishing. “And if my 
things are too light and soil quickly I’ll buy 
more.” 

“Righto!” said Brooke, completely forgetting his 
shyness. “That’s the spirit. Now we can get to 
work. Can you bring your mind down to anything 
so mundane as the kitchen?” 

“Do get a proper hot water installation and a 
porcelain bath,” begged Mrs. Blaikie, plaintively. 
“And put in a decent range and proper hot cup¬ 
boards. And do fit up that little cloak-room off the 


102 


GOLDEN DISHES 


hall with hot and cold water, and turn the dressing- 
room next your room into a bathroom for yourself.” 

“White and silver with turquoise-blue tiles,” said 
Brooke, scribbling in a notebook. 

“I’ll leave those things to you,” smiled Damaris. 
“You understand about them far better than I do. 
But don’t forget that I want a good bedroom and 
studio for my brother and something specially attrac¬ 
tive for my niece.” 

“Is it a flapper niece?” asked Brooke, dubiously. 
“Pink and white sort?” 

“Brown and gold rather,” Damaris answered, 
thinking of the sun-tanned faunlike face of Roland’s 
sketch. “I’ve got a picture of her at Greystones. 
You must see it before we decide on the colours for 
her room.” 

“My dear Damaris, after the wandering life the 
girl has led she will think anything perfect.” 

“I don’t know, Mrs. Blaikie. She looks as if 
she had a mind of her own. I want to please 
her-” 

“You want to spoil her.” 

“Well, a little spoiling won’t do her any harm,” 
Damaris said softly, her heart leaping at the 
thought. 

To have a young thing to pet and play with and 
make much of, her own flesh and blood, her adored 
Roland’s child—oh, it would be worth having, worth 
making sacrifices for! Damaris was glad now that 
she had stayed with Aunt Charlotte, apart from any 
abstract consolation of duty done, glad that she had 
got this money, this wonderful money which was 
going to bring such light and beauty into so many 
lives. A dream castle raised its iridescent pinnacles. 



GOLDEN DISHES 103 

“What about the library?” asked Brooke sud¬ 
denly. 

The castle tumbled about Damaris’s ears, and a 
swift pain stabbed her. In all her dreams of Para- 
dell the library had been held sacred to Ludlow 
Tempest. Its book-lined walls, its deep brown 
chairs, its orange and russet and golden-patterned 
curtains were for him, and him alone. She did not 
feel as if she could bear to let even Roland use the 
room. 

She turned from the green tangle of the water- 
garden, where no least crystal glimmer showed, so 
thick was the duck-weed. 

“I think I’ll go back and have another look at it,” 
she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. 
“Will you go through the kitchen part with Mr. 
Brooke, please, Mrs. Blaikie, and find out exactly 
what’s wanted? You are sure to know far better 
than I do.” 

“Certainly, dear,” returned Mrs. Blaikie, her 
spirits rising with a sense of renewed importance. 
She had been feeling a little out of the discussion. 
Damaris and Chris Brooke had been so—well, 
really, so dogmatic and self-opinionated. What did 
either know about house decoration? Chris, perhaps 
a little, but poor, dear, old-fashioned Damaris! . . . 
Momentously she led the way to the kitchen, incon¬ 
gruously smart in her rose-wreathed toque and snowy 
gloves. Damaris went up the mossy steps, old 
memories still pricking her, but not too poignantly, 
for Time had blunted their sharpness. Suddenly 
this new pain, this new agony of longing for Tem¬ 
pest, overpowered all other emotions. She went in 
through the long, graciously-shaped drawing-room 


104 


GOLDEN DISHES 


and across the hall with its well-remembered black 
and white tiles, down the little corridor to the 
library, which looked out on the great beeches of 
the lawn that stretched in front of the house. Now 
the railing that separated it from the drive was 
broken and the wild had encroached once more upon 
the clearing. Bracken sprang triumphantly through 
the grass, pressing towards the house in sturdy 
trespass. 

Damaris stood by the window gazing with eyes 
that saw nothing of the desolation without. The 
desolation within brought a hot smart to her lids, 
a choking lump to her throat. 

If only Ludlow had not been so unreasonable, so 
impulsive! If only her pride had not sprung up so 
fiercely! If only she had been more conciliatory, 
more yielding! If . . . if . . . if—that monosyl¬ 
lable so pitifully packed with potentialities! 

As she stood there, her pleasure dimmed, the 
sparkle flattened from her earlier elation, she heard 
an unexpected sound, yet one familiar in the past 
that paradoxically seemed so near, yet loomed so 
distant: the sounds of wheels upon the drive. She 
threw open the dust-grimed window and looked out. 

A pony, fatter than that of her remembered youth, 
ambled slowly round the curve of the avenue, draw¬ 
ing a low-hung phaeton with yellow wheels, in which 
sat a ponderous lady dressed in black. A greater 
contrast to the fawn-coloured motor-car which had 
brought them from Winchester, and now stood out¬ 
side the hall door, gleaming in the sun, could not be 
imagined. 

A vignette from the past, clear and vivid, flashed 
upon the screen of Damaris’s mind. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


105 


“Lady Salmarais!” she exclaimed. 

So used Lady Salmarais come to visit her mother 
in the old half-forgotten days. She would have 
shrunk back out of sight, suddenly reluctant to link 
up a chain which had snapped with such tragic 
abruptness, had not the lady in the phaeton caught 
sight of her and waved a commanding hand. 

“Stop!” she exclaimed to the diminutive groom 
perched behind her. 

He jumped down and sprang to the somnolent 
pony’s head with a ludicrous effect of urgency. 

Damaris, feeling that the past had to be faced 
sooner or later, went quickly out into the hall and 
down the steps to greet her unexpected visitor. 

Lady Salmarais, almost as fat and placid as the 
pony, with two chins, the suspicion of a beard and 
more than the rudiments of a grizzled moustache, 
made no attempt to descend from the vehicle but sat, 
calm as an enthroned Buddha, awaiting the younger 
woman’s approach. 

“It is Lady Salmarais, isn’t it?” said Damaris, a 
little breathlessly, as she drew near. “I’m Damaris 
Packe, who used to live here long ago.” 

“Of course it’s Lady Salmarais. How clever of 
you to remember me! I heard in the village that a 
motor-car had driven out to Paradell, so I thought 
I’d come and see if it was you. Dear, dear, how 
time flies! . . . you are the image of your poor 
mother, Damaris, though she never had that ridicu¬ 
lous grey hair. What business have you with it at 
your age, child?” 

“It’s been like that since I was twenty.” 

“And now you are—let me see!—about two and 
thirty?” 


106 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“That’s exactly my age.” 

Lady Salmarais’s first feeling at sight of the heir¬ 
ess had been disappointment. Frankly, her visit had 
been prompted by curiosity rather than kindness. 
She was anxious that her son Hubert should range 
himself suitably, and popular report had already 
swelled Damaris’s fortune to half a million. There¬ 
fore she felt that it behoved her on the strength of 
an earlier though not very close friendship, to find 
out for herself the full possibilities of this romantic 
return on the part of the half-forgotten Damaris 
Packe. She was not consciously hypocritical. No 
good mother ever is. It is merely that she realizes 
what a duller world ignores: that her son is the solar 
centre of her social system and therefore of para¬ 
mount importance to her if to no one else. 

Once Lady Salmarais had got sufficiently over the 
shock of Damaris’s grey hair to notice the clear 
delicacy of her skin and the wistful candour of her 
blue eyes, she mentally registered approval, and 
saw with her mind’s eye “A pretty wedding in the 
ancient church of St. Michael’s, Thornycross, Hamp¬ 
shire”— with her son, Sir Hubert Salmarais, tri¬ 
umphantly leading the heiress to the altar. 

“She looks biddable,” Lady Salmarais reflected, 
with a rapidity with which few would have credited 
her. “Her mother was a Clyffard. Her clothes are 
good, but not smart. Smartness is out of place in 
the Forest. Yes. She’ll do ... If only Hubert 
has the sense to see it!” Aloud she said, cheerfully, 
quite oblivious of the small groom’s presence, “Yes, 
thirty-two. I thought so. You were about eight 
years younger than my Hubert, of course. You and 
he used to play together long ago.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


107 


Damaris smiled and shook her head. “Scarcely 
that, Lady Salmarais. Your son used to despise 
girls in those days, if I remember aright.” 

“He doesn’t now.” Lady Salmarais nodded por¬ 
tentously and Damaris was suddenly aware of the 
nucleus of a third chin. “I assure you, my dear 
Damaris, he doesn’t now.” 

“He and Roland used to be rather friends, I 
remember,” pursued Damaris, anxious to please. 

“Roland? Ah, young Waring, your step-brother. 
Didn’t he disappear? I seem to remember some 
story-” The chins quivered disapprovingly. 

Damaris sprang to champion the beloved. 

“There was no story, Lady Salmarais. Roland 
went to Paris to study Art. He is now a celebrated 
painter. He has pictures in the Paris Salon. Several 
have been bought by American millionaires.” In 
her zeal she unconsciously multiplied Roland’s suc¬ 
cesses. “He and his little girl are coming to live 
with me at Paraded as soon as it is ready.” 

“Indeed! That will be pleasant for you.” Lady 
Salmarais was not interested in the Arts. To her 
there was something mentally as well as physically 
dishevelled in those who pursued them. They were 
very definitely not “county,” and therefore did not 
concern her. 

There was a pause, as if the mere mention of 
Roland Waring had checked the flow of Lady Sal- 
marais’s deliberate kindliness. 

“I am sorry that I cannot ask you to come in,” 
began Damaris, rather timidly, still uilused to dis¬ 
pensing hospitality on her own account. “The 
place is all dust and cobwebs-” 

“Of course,” Lady Salmarais interrupted, frown- 




108 


GOLDEN DISHES 


ing. “Those Morleys! . . . What else could you 
expect? His father owned boot-shops in London! 
Your step-brother had no business to sell Paradell 
to such people! They tried to get into society here, 
but naturally no one would accept them.” 

Damaris was conscious of a pang of pity for the 
unfortunate people who had attempted to force 
their way through the thorn-hedge of “county” con¬ 
servatism, although she felt a relief, which she was 
honest enough to term snobbish, as Lady Salmarais 
continued with a marked change of tone: 

“We were all so relieved to hear that you had 
bought the place back, my dear. In these levelling 
democratic days it makes such a difference to know 
that a nice little place like Paradell still belongs to 
one of us and hasn’t been snapped up by one of 
those dreadful nouveaux riches.” 

Damaris could not help smiling. “You forget, 
Lady Salmarais, that I myself am one of the newest 
of nouveaux riches!” 

Lady Salmarais smiled back indulgently. “Ah, 
but that is different. Your mother was a Clyffard 
and the Packes were quite good people, I believe.” 
Her smooth face wrinkled and her short-sighted 
brown eyes peered forward apprehensively to where 
Mrs. Blaikie had come out on the steps. “Who is 
that woman?” she asked, as one might query, “Who 
is that worm?” 

Damaris turned round. “Oh, it’s Mrs. Blaikie, 
our doctor’s wife, who kindly came with me today. 
May I introduce her?” 

Lady Salmarais hastily gathered up the reins. 
“Certainly not. She is the very image of that Mrs. 
Morley—a dreadful type. Come, William, home, 


GOLDEN DISHES 109 

please. Good-bye, my dear, and I’ll come and see 
you later on, when you are alone.” 

The groom let the pony’s head go and sprang 
smartly to his seat. Lady Salmarais turned home¬ 
wards, musing as she went: “The worst of it is, she 
won’t be alone. I do hope she will not surround 
herself with a crowd of impossible people. If only 
she would let herself be guided by me. ...” 

“Who was that?” asked Mrs. Blaikie with uncon¬ 
cealed amusement. “Such a countrified turn-out! 
I think it must have been saved from the Ark!” 

“That was Lady Salmarais, an old friend of my 
mother’s. Her son, Sir Hubert, owns the big place 
here, Shotton Court.” 

“Is he married?” Mrs. Blaikie’s tone altered 
oddly. 

“I don’t think so.” 

Mrs. Blaikie frowned. . . . The old lady had 
evidently come to spy out the land. What a fool 
Ludlow was to muff his chances like this! He 
could not say that she hadn’t warned him. He must 
have received her letter long ago, though he hadn’t 
taken the trouble to answer it. She wished she 
had met this Lady Salmarais. . . . 

“You should have introduced me, Damaris,” she 
said with asperity. It irked her physically to lose 
an opportunity. 

“I would have done so if Lady Salmarais had not 
been in such a hurry,” answered Damaris frankly. 

Not being of those who are ashamed of their 
friends, she felt a touch of anger towards Lady 
Salmarais for her narrow prejudices. First Roland, 
then Mrs. Blaikie. Who next? 

In spite of her friendliness Damaris felt that she 


110 


GOLDEN DISHES 


was not going to like Lady Salmarais very much. 
She did not suppose that she would like Sir Hubert 
very much either, but what did that matter? 

She would have Roland and Tory. The thought 
warmed her like wine. She would have her own 
dear people, even if Ludlow. . . . Her eyes misted 
suddenly. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


late July sunshine brooded over the 
irest like a spell, casting the magic 
its light and warmth on pink- 
immed larch-groves, deeper thickets 
gnarled oak and beech, green glades 
where dryads might dance by singing stream or 
reed-fringed pool, moss-grown drives cloven sud¬ 
denly through the wood’s heart, and unexpected 
stretches of wild rose-purple moor, whose honey 
scent met the challenge flung by the pinky-yellow 
trumpets of the woodbine wreathed about the trees 
at the moor’s edge. 

Damaris Packe drove through the Forest with 
quickened pulses and caught breath. 

All this beauty was hers. She had a personal 
share in its magic. With Paradell she had become 
possessed of Common Rights: Common of Mast, or 
the right to turn out her pigs to feed on the beech- 
mast or acorns; Common of Pasture, or the right to 
use the Forest grass for grazing purposes; Turbary, 
or the right to cut a certain quantity of its turf; 
and Estovars, or the right to use its wood for fuel. 

So far she had neither pig for the beech-mast nor 
cow for the fine green grass, but it was all very 
exciting, very thrilling. It gave her a feeling of 
certainty, of establishment: as if at last she had a 
personality and a place of her own in the world. 
She felt as a dragon-fly might on emerging from its 
prison of still waters. She wanted to preen iridescent 
wings and sun herself in this strange new glow. 

Life at Paradell was as yet too new to have 
in 











112 


GOLDEN DISHES 


shape or form, but she was going to mould it into 
something rare and beautiful. She had not really- 
settled down yet. There was at present shapeless¬ 
ness, uncertainty where all would one day be smooth 
and gracious. 

Time had spun for the past few weeks in a whirl 
of delightfully busy preoccupation. She could as 
yet scarcely believe that the beautiful grey car with 
its crystalline screen and winking silver fittings, 
in which she was now driving to Brockenhurst to 
meet Roland and Tory, was her own: that the smart 
chauffeur who was so tolerant of her desire for a 
moderate speed was actually her servant. He was 
also Benson’s young man, and Damaris had bribed 
each with the other as an inducement to follow her 
into the wilds, as they considered Thornycross. 
They were to be married as soon as the gate-lodge 
could be got ready for them. Meantime, Damaris 
felt the glow of having made two people happy. 

She was happy herself in a quiet way as the car 
purred smoothly along the black Forest roads: as 
happy as any one can be who has lost the one 
supreme personal joy of life. Today in her inmost 
heart she felt that perhaps it was not really lost, 
after all. 

“Perhaps it’s only mislaid,” she told herself wist¬ 
fully. “And what is mislaid may always be found 
again.” 

Her heart beat high with expectancy as she hoped 
that everything was really ready for the beloved 
travellers. 

Eagerly she ran her mind over her preparations to 
make sure that nothing had been forgotten. 

Christopher Brooke had been a tower of strength. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


113 


nice big Chris . . . her thoughts trailed. . . . 
What a help he had been! His firmness had tact¬ 
fully guided her indecisions over dangerous places. 
His taste had been so sure, so unerring. He had 
been perfectly right about the white paint. The old 
house gleamed within like a pearl. He had helped 
her to sift the wheat from the chaff of Aunt Char¬ 
lotte’s furniture. It was almost unbelievable how 
different and how absolutely right what he had 
chosen looked in its new setting. 

Mrs. Blaikie had not quite liked his assurance. 
She, who had known young Christopher from his 
babyhood, was loth to concede to him the excellence 
of taste which was undoubtedly his. She thought 
the house dowdy. 

“Vieux jeu” her word was a dictum which she 
repeated with a disdain which ought to have reduced 
Damaris to pulp, but oddly enough did not. 

Damaris was growing in all directions, thrusting 
out sturdy shoots of independence and originality, 
hitherto ruthlessly pruned back by circumstance. She 
did not want to hurt dear Mrs. Blaikie, of course, 
but when their tastes differed so widely she could not 
allow Mrs. Blaikie to dictate to her about what was, 
after all, her own home. . . . She felt almost 
ashamed to think it, but was not Mrs. Blaikie’s 
craze for modernity at the expense of congruity 
just a little vulgar? . . . Chris Brooke thought so, 
she knew. He blinked his eyelashes rapidly at Mrs. 
Blaikie’s suggestions and went quietly on his own 
way. It gave Damaris a little thrill of pleasure to 
think that he never blinked at her now. He had 
completely got over his shyness where she was 
concerned and the two were fast friends. 


114 


GOLDEN DISHES 


He had been invaluable over the decoration of 
Roland’s and Tory’s rooms. It had been his idea 
to turn the big attic with the north light into a 
studio. Damaris had decided that Roland must 
have his own old bedroom. . . . The scene flashed 
back. . . . 

“He’s been a wanderer for so long that the more 
English it is the better he’ll like it,” Brooke had 
declared. 

Therefore English it was, with its white-striped 
paper and rose-trellised chintzes, its polished mahog¬ 
any furniture and every modern comfort that a 
travel-worn man might desire. So Brooke assured 
her. 

He was equally decided about Tory’s room. Dam¬ 
aris remembered how he had held her picture in his 
hand, gazing at it for long without speaking. When 
at last he laid it down he said: 

“You were right. She’s not a pink and white 
flapper.” 

Somewhat to the discomfort of Damaris he had 
thought out a strange, even a bizarre scheme of 
decoration. 

“Sunny yellow walls,” he commanded. “She’s 
lived all her life in the South. She’ll find this place 
grey. And the gayest chintzes with parrots and 
things on them. Some of the new white furniture 
with either bright flowers or parrakeets painted on 
them. You know the sort.” 

Damaris did, from her recurrent pilgrimages to 
furniture-shops, and demurred. . . . That was not 
her idea of a young girl’s bedroom. . . . But Brooke 
was firm. 

“Look at that face,” he said. “It’s a woodland 


GOLDEN DISHES 


115 


face, an elvish sprite of a face. It would hate your 
pinks and blues. It wants brightness, a perfect riot 
of colour. The gayer the better to match its own 
streak of wildness. I’m telling you-” 

“You’re frightening me,” cried Damaris, half rue¬ 
ful, half laughing. 

“That”—he indicated the picture with a nod, and 
a funny glow in his half-closed eyes—“will frighten 
you more. She’ll want careful handling, I warn 
you, Miss Packe. She’s a prickly golden, wild 
rose of a tiling, full of sharp little thorns. She 
won’t respond to taming or planting in gardens. 
She’ll grow best if you let her go her own way.” 

“How do you know all this? You’ve never seen 
her. You’re afraid of girls!” 

“I know I am, but I’ve never seen one like that 
before. She wants slapping and shaking, probably, 
but it would take a man to do it.” He laughed, 
almost as if he felt himself to be the man for the 
job. 

For a moment old prejudices surged within Dam¬ 
aris. Was Christopher Brooke being impertinent? 
Ought she to snub him? She glanced across at him. 
He was watching her amusedly. 

“Carry out your 'Bear a lily in thy hand’ scheme 
if you like, Miss Packe, but I warn you that it 
will be a mistake,” he said with perfect good- 
humour. 

“Oh, very well. Have it your own way,” she 
exclaimed rather pettishly. . . . 

Even now as she neared the tree-embowered red 
roofs and caught the glow of gardens on the out¬ 
skirts of Brockenhurst she wondered if she had 
been right to give in. Beside the quiet reticence of 


116 


GOLDEN DISHES 


the rest of the house that odd room flashed gay as 
a macaw in a dove-cot. 

The car stole through the quaint streets with their 
timbered houses and drew up in front of the station. 
In a moment Damaris stood on the platform with a 
beating heart. 

The train was already signalled. A mist of 
excitement dimmed her eyes as she looked from the 
gleaming curve of the rails below to the burnished 
web of the telegraph wires overhead. How could 
she bear it? . . . Would the train never come! 

. . . Her heart thudded. 

Then, as a bustle on the platform foretold its 
approach, she felt a sudden desire for flight. What 
would they look like? Would they be loving or 
appraising, these dear, unknown people of her own 
flesh and blood? Roland . . . Roland had been so 
light-hearted, so handsome with his black hair and 
blue eyes. ... He couldn’t have changed much. 
. . . And Tory ... a prickly wild rose, Chris 
Brooke had called her. . . . Damaris did not mind. 
She was ready to take her to her warm heart, prickles 
and all. 

Her mind was a turmoil of emotion as the train 
slowed down. She eagerly scanned the windows, 
but for a moment saw no one who approximated 
to her visitors. Then she turned to search the other 
end with anxious eyes. 

A man and a girl were coming along the platform 
towards her, looking about them expectantly. . . . 
Could it be they? 

The man was tall and stooped slightly. He wore 
a dark blue suit and a grey felt hat. His face was 
thin and he had the oddest little flat black whiskers. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


117 


There was a touch of flamboyance about his tie, 
which was of soft silk, shot green and blue like a 
peacock’s breast. No. It couldn’t be Roland. . . . 

The girl came up to his shoulder and was lithely 
built. She wore a black-belted frock of shepherd’s- 
plaid, and a white bowl-like hat with a wreath of 
tiny gay flowers, which came well down over her 
face, half concealing it. 

At sight of Damaris the man quickened his pace. 

“’Tis she, Pixy!” he cried. He held out his 
hands. “Damaris! I knew that no one else could 
have such blue, blue eyes!” He hid his dismay at 
her silvery hair most creditably as he kissed her on 
either soft cheek in foreign fashion. 

“Roland!” she clung to him for a moment too 
tense in its emotion for speech. 

Then she swallowed the lump in her throat and 
winked back the tears that hung on her lashes, as she 
turned to welcome her niece. 

Damaris was the taller of the two, but the girl 
held herself so stiffly that her aunt’s kiss alighted 
on the side of her firm young chin. 

“So you are Tory,” said Damaris slowly. “For 
years and years I have longed to see you, my dear. 
Welcome to England at last!” 

“Thank you,” said Tory, her eyes defensive rather 
than grateful under the brim of her typically French 
little hat. She looked around her critically. “Nut- 
kin, I believe you’ve forgotten your bag.” She 
darted back to the carriage, glad to escape. 

Silence could only be bridged by trivialities. 
Damaris turned to Roland. 

“Why does she call you Nutkin?” 

Roland laughed. “It was a nursery rhyme I used 


118 


GOLDEN DISHES 


to sing her to sleep with long ago, about ‘Nibble, 
nibble, Nutkin,’ the Squirrel. It’s her pet name 
for me. She never uses any other. . . . What do 
you think of my ewe lamb, Damans?” . . . 

“She looks a delightful girl,” answered Damaris, 
“but your child would be sure to be that. She 
is naturally a little shy at first.” 

Roland murmured under his breath. “Tory shy! 
Mon Dieu! I do hope the brat will behave her¬ 
self properly.” Then aloud: “She’s retrieved my 
bag. How do we get to Paradell, Damaris?” 

“I’ve got a car,” answered Damaris proudly. 
“There is a cart, too, for your luggage.” 

“But we haven’t got any,” said Waring, with a 
smile that brought the old boyish Roland back for 
a moment. “At least, I’ve got a valise and the 
Pixy a couple of suit-cases. We are used to travel¬ 
ling light, you know.” 

“I know . . . very sensible too. But hasn’t Tory 
got a hat-box? ...” Dear Roland! He was so 
plucky about his poverty! 

“Not she. She never wears hats. That thing”— 
he pointed to the white bowl on his daughter’s 
head—“is merely a concession to an absurd social 
convention, which the shop woman assured us was 
of the most chic.” He laughed. “I really don’t 
know Pixy in a hat.” 

“You call her Pixy?” 

“Yes. She is rather a wild elfin creature, you 
know. I am hoping that England will tame her a 
little. . . . England! . . . Mon Dieu , it’s good to 
be back!” 

“You’re glad, then, Roland?” 

“Glad? . . . I’ve got no words.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


119 


Damaris’s heart swelled. She, too, had no words. 
She slipped her hand through her brother’s arm. 

“If you’ve no luggage to see to we can be getting 
home. I’m longing to show you Paradell.” 

Tory watched the two coming towards her with 
frowning brows. It pricked her to see Damaris’s 
proprietary gesture. . . . Nutkin belonged to her. 
She had no intention of sharing him with any one 
else. Especially a step-sister. Step-sisters were 
scarcely any real relation, even if they did happen to 
have had the same mother. . . . She had never 
wanted to come to England. She was perfectly 
happy in her wandering life. She had known that 
she wouldn’t like England, and she didn’t! So 
there! Mentally a small brown fist, now unhappily 
encased in a grey doeskin glove, was shaken in the 
face of an unconscious England. . . . Inimically 
she awaited their approach. 

They were on her, Damaris still with her arm 
through Waring’s, Nutkin with quite a foolishly 
seraphic expression on his face. 

“England, my England!” Tory murmured in a 
fierce undertone and pinched his other arm sur¬ 
reptitiously. 

“Pixy!” He rounded on her. “You love it too. 
You know you do. You were quite lyrical about 
Southampton Water and the Forest.” 

“Oh, woods are woods, wherever you find them,” 
Tory answered perversely. “And water is water. 
But just look at the sunshine!” 

To Damaris the afternoon glow seemed mellow 
and heart-warming. To Waring also it breathed 
of home and welcome. 

“What’s wrong with the sunshine?” he demanded. 


120 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“It’s veiled. It’s damp. There’s no scorch in it.” 

“If there were a scorch you wouldn’t have all 
this heavenly green.” 

“It’s all new to her, Roland, remember. She will 
probably grow to love it in time,” put in Damaris 
gently. “It isn’t home to her yet.” 

Tory made an impatient movement. . . . How 
dare this interloper explain her, make excuses for 
her, to Nutkin? She would not have it! . . . Sud¬ 
denly her mood changed at a glance from Waring: 
a glance which said as plainly as words: “Pixy, you 
promised to behave yourself! ...” She mustn’t 
disappoint Nutkin. After all, the interfering crea¬ 
ture had given him a great deal of pleasure already, 
and she probably meant well. She mustn’t forget 
that. She flashed back a reassuring smile at Waring 
that showed all her strong little white teeth, as they 
went out into the road. 

“What a chic car!” she exclaimed, with obvious 
intent to please. “Is it yours, Damaris?” 

Damaris was too pleased at the sign of friendli¬ 
ness to deprecate the youthful familiarity. 

“Yes. I hope we shall explore all the country 
round in it.” 

“I intend to explore the Forest on foot,” Tory said 
calmly. “You don’t want to sit in front, Nutkin, do 
you? Because I should like to sit next the chauffeur 
and see how fast he can make the car go! ” 

Neither hearer guessed that this was an unspoken 
amende honorable on Tory’s part, or that it had cost 
the girl a real pang to offer to sit in front and leave 
the other two alone behind. The suggestion filled 
Damaris with alarm and Waring with amusement. 

“But I am rather nervous about going too fast,” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


121 


Damaris exclaimed. “Don’t drive too quickly, 
please, Briggs.” 

“No, miss,” answered Briggs reassuringly. 

“What’s the use of a car in that case?” asked 
Tory disdainfully. “I should like to go at top 
speed.” 

“We don’t want to be arrested for furious driving 
on our arrival in England, Pixy,” said her father, 
following Damaris into the car. “What a con¬ 
trast to the old fat pony, Rufus, Damaris!” 

“Do you remember?” Damaris made a quick 
response. 

With the magic shuttle of remembrance they wove 
a web long enough to stretch from past to present, 
while the miles slipped by and the Forest called to 
Roland Waring—“Remember me!”—at every glade 
and gleaming pool: at every deep of woodland, every 
stretch of moor, until they turned at last into the 
winding road outside Thornycross that led home¬ 
wards. 

The iron gates of Paradell stood hospitably open, 
their fine curves and loops standing out proudly 
against the green background in their new panoply 
of white paint. 

The drive was freshly gravelled with the red- 
gold Forest gravel: the edges trimmed, the under¬ 
growth cut back. 

“Mon Dieu, Damaris! You have improved the 
place!” Waring exclaimed, gazing round with all 
the interest of the returned exile. “It never looked 
like this in the old days.” 

“I am so glad you like it. I was afraid it looked 
too ‘nouveaux riches,’ as Lady Salmarais would say, 
but it had to be cleaned and tidied.” 


122 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Lady Salmarais! Dieu! I had forgotten her. 
Is she just the same fat old prig as ever? How she 
used to dislike me long ago! ” His hat had been long 
since tossed aside, but the soft Forest air had not 
even ruffled his smoothly brushed-back hair. He 
passed his hand over it as he spoke—a frequent 
gesture. 

Damaris had by this time found enough of the 
old Roland to resent the sleek locks and the queer 
little black side-whiskers. They had an effect of 
affectation which rather jarred on her. 

“Why did she dislike you, Roland? It certainly 
struck me that she wasn’t very cordial when I 
mentioned your name to her.” 

Waring laughed. “She was afraid that I had an 
evil influence on her precious Hubert.” 

“But you hadn’t, of course. How could you?” 

“I merely tried to wake him up, to show him a 
little life. Mon Dieu! What a dry stick of a fellow! 
Is he the same still, Damaris?” 

“I have only seen him once when his mother 
brought him to call in due state. His hobby is 
natural history and he is writing a book about the 
beetles of the New Forest; coleoptera, I think he 
called them. He was very shy at first, but waxed 
eloquent and talked quite excitedly about lamelli- 
corns and pseudo—something or other.” 

“By which he only meant stag-beetles and lady¬ 
birds! I remember! ... I pushed him into a 
pond one time he was hunting for water-beetles. 
Mamma Salmarais didn’t at all approve, though I 
pulled him out again instantly. He was scarcely 
wet.” 

“Still, it wasn’t very nice of you, Roland.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


123 


Damaris smiled condonation. It was just as good 
as she had pictured, having some one to “reminisce” 
with, to laugh at, to talk to on equal terms. 

Her intercourse with Tempest had been of a dif¬ 
ferent, a more disturbing quality. This was the 
old camaraderie of blood with all the zest of the 
long-lost and newly found added to it. 

“When are little boys nice?” Waring countered. 
“They all bear the mark of the beast. They are 
the cruellest little devils unhung.” 

“Oh, no, Roland.” 

“Oh, yes, Damaris!” he mocked softly. 

Tory, hearing the familiar interchange, bit her 
lip as the car drew up in front of the house. 

Its newly painted windows peered from the still 
luxuriant tangle of creepers like friendly eyes. A 
little breeze fluttered the curtains. The white hall 
door, with its gracefully-fluted fanlight, stood hos¬ 
pitably open as if to welcome the newcomers. Noth¬ 
ing was closed against them. The whole house stood 
warmly waiting. It was as if with one beautiful 
gesture of love Damaris had thrown open both heart 
and home to the wanderers. 

“Thank you, Briggs,” she said to the chauffeur. 

Then she turned to the Warings and held out a 
hand to each. 

“Welcome home,” she said simply. She could 
say no more. Her heart was too full for speech. 

“My dear,” said Waring, stooping to kiss the 
hand he held, deeply touched. 

“I hope she doesn’t want to kiss me again,” 
thought Tory, awkward, as youth ever is, in the 
presence of emotion in her elders. 

But Damaris did not attempt any further demon- 


124 


GOLDEN DISHES 


stration. Roland was as much hers as he had ever 
been, but she had still to win this shy, wild little 
niece. She must give her time, she felt. 

As they went into the house together, Damaris felt 
as if this were her real home-coming too. Her dream 
was true at last, she could scarcely realize it. 

With so much that she might say and so little that 
she could, she was silent. 

Tory looked round her at the panelled hall, with 
its open fireplace already laid with pine-logs, its fine 
carved grandfather clock with quaintly-painted 
moon-faces, its old blue Chinese vases and high 
screen of Spanish leather. 

“This really is England/’ she said slowly. “I 
should have recognized it anywhere from the old 
Christmas numbers at Madame Meriot’s!” 


CHAPTER TWELVE 



S they stood in the hall Benson emerged 
from behind the screen, silver teapot 
and kettle on a tray. She stopped when 
she saw her mistress. 

“I made the tea, miss, as soon as I 
heard the car,” she said. “I hope I did right.” 

“Quite right, Benson. Mr. and Miss Waring will 
be glad of a cup of tea after their journey. Won’t 
you, Roland?” 

Waring smiled. “It is so long since I have had 
tea that I’ve almost forgotten the taste. But, of 
course, it wouldn’t be England without afternoon 
tea, would it, Pixy?” 

“Of course not. It’s an English fetish, isn’t it? 
I should like mine with a slice of lemon in it, please.” 

“Lemon?” echoed Damaris, puzzled. “In tea?” 

“That’s the Russian fashion,” Waring explained 
hastily. He smiled at Benson in the way that made 
dependents adore him. “If Benson will be good 
enough to procure a lemon for us-” 

“Certainly, sir,” said Benson, retreating. 

These were queer outlandish relations of Miss 
Damaris’s, who had forgotten the taste of decent tea 
and then liked theirs with lemon in it, of all things! 
Why, lemon would curdle the cream! . . . Mr. 
Waring was a pleasant enough gentleman, for all 
his foreign ways and funny little side whiskers, but 
the young lady. . . . ! Benson must say—but she 
only said it to herself—that she had taken no fancy 
to the young lady. 


125 












126 


GOLDEN DISHES 


She took even less when she came back later on 
and found her smoking a funny little yellow Russian 
cigarette, whose aroma overpowered the clean fra¬ 
grance of the bowls of roses with which Damaris 
had filled the delicately beautiful room. 

Damaris herself had experienced a little shock 
when, after her assent to Roland’s lighting up, Tory 
had stretched out her hand coolly and helped her¬ 
self to a cigarette from her father’s case. 

“Roland, you don’t let her smoke?” she cried. 

Waring laughed and shrugged his shoulders. 
“What can I do?” 

“Nutkin, don’t be mean!” flashed Tory indig¬ 
nantly. “You know you’ve let me smoke ever since 
I was fifteen. You said it was more companionable.” 

“Well, so it is. Damaris, we must teach you. 
Have one?” He held out his case. 

Damaris shook her head. If it had been Lud¬ 
low who had suggested it she might have harboured 
the idea, but the sight of Tory perched with crossed 
legs on a stool smoking that queer yellow cigarette 
jarred sufficiently to preclude her from any desire 
to imitate her action. 

“I’m too old to learn, Roland.” 

“Nonsense! I’ve seen women of seventy smok¬ 
ing.” 

“Say too old-fashioned and you’ll be nearer the 
mark, Damaris,” said Tory tolerantly. “You’re 
perfectly right, though. It wouldn’t be a bit in the 
picture if you smoked. It’s not your metier.” 

She spoke with a frankness, a freedom which 
Damaris had never encountered hitherto, and which 
rather took her breath away with its startling dif¬ 
ference from anything she had expected. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


127 


“It really is you and I who aren’t in the picture, 
Nutkin,” Tory pursued. “This sleepy, quaint, old 
English house makes a perfect background for Dam- 
aris. You and I are incongruities.” 

“Oh, no,” breathed Damaris. 

“Oh, yes,” said Tory. “But that makes the con¬ 
trast all the more piquant. Doesn’t it, Nutkin? 
You see what I mean? There’s a real picture in it 
somewhere. Can you see it?” 

She had flung off her hat on entering the drawing¬ 
room and it lay absurdly on its side on the polished 
floor, leaning on its blurred reflection. A tawny 
plait hung over each shoulder. Her face was alight 
with interest. 

Waring half closed his eyes. “Not quite—yet, 
but it may come. You often see things before I do, 
Pixy-thing! You mean-” 

Damaris looked from one to the other. They 
completely forgot her as they argued and flung sug¬ 
gestions at each other—terms of tones, values, what 
not, with which she was utterly unfamiliar. They 
might, save for the English sound of their words, 
have been speaking a foreign language, for all she 
could understand of their talk. At last Roland 
paused with a laugh. 

“Poor Damaris! How we must have bored you 
with our jargon! We’re barbarians, Pixy and I— 
quite unused to civilized society. You must forgive 
us.” 

Damaris smiled. “It’s rather a compliment to 
think that you feel so at home already as to find 
me no bar to your conversation.” She stopped 
abruptly. Her words sounded stilted to her own 
ears. Old-fashioned. Yes, that was her label. Tory 




128 


GOLDEN DISHES 


had ticketed her neatly. But how was she to 
become different, more modern? Suddenly she felt 
as a cage-bird might who had been let loose into 
a strange world. . . . There was at least a sense of 
security in a cage. . . . Her colour rose. She felt 
a swift anger at herself for such a cowardly idea. 

“Isn’t she a pretty thing, Pixy?” cried Roland 
unexpectedly. “ You’ve grown into a very charming 
woman, little sister.” He jumped up impulsively 
and bent to kiss her cheek. 

His jaw felt rough against her smoothness. The 
scent of his clothes and tobacco brought back the 
memory of Ludlow with a little stab. 

“You mustn’t pay me compliments, Roland,” she 
blushed. “I’m not used to them.” 

“Time you were, then,” he said with an affection 
that brought once more to her eyes that mist for 
which she felt sure that Tory would despise her. 

She rose. “You would like to see your rooms 
and perhaps change and rest before dinner. I’ll 
get Benson to unpack for you.” 

“I always pack and unpack for Nutkin,” put in 
Tory quickly. “I know exactly how and where 
he likes to have everything.” 

“Just as you please, dear. I only thought-” 

“You don’t realize what savages we are, Dam- 
aris,” said Waring, slipping his arm through hers. 
“You must make allowances for us.” 

“Allowances? Why, it’s the other way round! I 
am only too happy to have you with me to think 
of such a thing.” 

Tory picked up her hat, looking as if she would 
much rather have kicked it along the polished 
floor. . . . Nutkin was ridiculous with his excuses 



GOLDEN DISHES 


129 


and apologies. Damaris had insisted on their com¬ 
ing to live with her, and if she didn’t like their 
ways, well, she must lump them. That was all! 

“Who has advised you about your alterations?” 
Waring asked, as they went across the hall. 

“A young architect named Brooke. He really 
is an awfully nice boy, Roland, and so clever. He 
will be over here tomorrow, probably. He comes 
about twice a week to see how things are getting 
on. He has a motor-bicycle.” 

“Where does he come from?” 

“Does he go fast?” 

The two questions came almost simultaneously 
from father and daughter. 

“Winchester. Yes, he does, rather,” answered 
Damaris, turning from one to the other. “He says 
that the Forest roads are a direct inducement to 
break the speed limit.” 

Tory nodded, but said nothing. 

“He’s a real artist, too. You’ll like him, Roland. 
He was invaluable to me over the decorations of 
the house,” Damaris continued. 

Tory’s nose went up at the idea of a mere archi¬ 
tect being called an artist. Waring, knowing every 
smallest danger-signal, promptly pulled the plait 
nearest to him as he said: “Yes, the decor’s all right. 
He hasn’t spoilt anything. You’ve got some good 
stuff here, Damaris. I suppose the old lady’s?” 

“Yes. Aunt Charlotte left me everything. Chris¬ 
topher Brooke helped me to choose what would suit 
Paraded. I had not to buy very much. I don’t 
like crowded rooms.” 

They went along the corridor. Damaris and 
Waring first, Tory stalking appraisingly after. 


130 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“I’ve given you your old room, Roland. I thought 
you’d like it best,” said Damaris, opening a door. 

“That was very dear of you,” Waring answered, 
looking quickly at all the luxurious preparations 
she had made for his comfort. “Why, this, is 
positively sybaritic! I am not used to such luxuries. 
The only drawback—if I remember aright—the 
room faces east, doesn’t it?” 

“Yes. I noticed that. I thought you’d like the 
morning sun.” 

“But it will wake me up so infernally early!” 

“We can have heavy curtains put up.” 

“But I loathe heavy curtains!” Waring frowned 
whimsically. 

“Dear,” said Damaris, hiding her little prick of 
disappointment. “You can have whatever other 
room you like later on, but ours are the only habit¬ 
able ones at present. I hurried them over these, so 
as to have you with me as soon as possible.” 

“But this room is perfect, peerless, far too good 
for me!” cried Waring, flashing a disarming smile. 
“I’m sure it will be excellent for me to be awakened 
early!” 

“Excellent indeed,” Tory corroborated. “I have 
the greatest difficulty sometimes in getting him up 
in the mornings, Damaris.” 

She sent a quick little glance of feminine rap¬ 
prochement towards Damaris, conscious that her 
father was not behaving very well. Each was im¬ 
mediately sensible of the other’s shortcomings, but 
scarcely so sensitive to their own. 

“I had very little done to your studio, Roland. 
I thought you’d prefer to furnish it yourself.” 

“Have you really given me a studio, you dear 


GOLDEN DISHES 131 

thing? Where is it? Let me see it. Has it a north 
light? Shall I be undisturbed there?” 

"It's the big attic at the back. See, the stairs 
are just outside your door here. You can come 
and go as you wish.” 

“Splendid! Come on, Pixy!” 

Waring ran hastily up the stairs, followed by 
Tory. Damaris went after them more slowly, hoping 
that all was right. The door was flung wide. She 
went in to find pleased faces. Her spirits rose 
again. . . . Roland liked it! 

She had had the bare floor stained and polished, 
the walls distempered a warm cinnamon brown, the 
window curtained with an orange and blue striped 
material. There was an easel in one corner, a 
comfortable chair or two, Oriental rugs on the floor, 
a table and a high carved cupboard full of shelves 
and drawers against one wall. No superfluities 
encumbered the fine long lines of the room, which 
was only very slightly cove-ceiled. 

As she entered Roland flung his arms about her 
and lifted her off her feet in an old bear’s hug. 

“Wonderful woman! It’s perfect!” he cried, 
setting her down a little breathless. 

“I’m so glad you’re pleased.” 

“Pleased? We’re delighted. Aren’t we, Pixy?” 

“It really is topping,” said Tory. “The sort of 
place we’ve always longed for.” 

“Oh, I am glad,” breathed Damaris, relieved. 
“Now wouldn’t Tory like to see her room? I’ve 
given her the one next yours.” 

“You’ve thought of everything, little sister,” said 
Waring softly. “Come, let us see how you’ve pre¬ 
visioned my Pixy’s setting.” 


132 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Damaris had her worst qualm as they descended 
the stairs. How could she face Tory’s disdain if 
the room were not to her liking? She did not dwell 
upon gratitude or ingratitude. She had no room 
in her heart today for such detached ethics of con¬ 
duct. She only felt that she could scarcely bear it 
if Christopher Brooke turned out to have been 
wrong. Of course if he were, the scheme could be 
easily altered, the furniture put in a spare bed¬ 
room; but once she had given in to his ideas she 
had worked, and planned, and journeyed to and fro 
so arduously in order to get exactly the right thing 
that any disappointment now would surely be double- 
edged. 

Tory thought generously: “Damaris has really 
been awfully decent. Even if she’s given me a blue 
and white room I’ll do my best to pretend I like it. 
If she’s put frills and draperies on things and hidden 
their nice plain shapes I’ll never let on how I loathe 
them, if I can possibly help it. Even if it’s a green 
room screaming at all the different greens outside 
I’ll try to bear it. . . . Or pink and white.” She 
paused in her thought for an awful instant as 
Damaris stood with her hand on the door. “Oh, 
it’s sure to be pink and white! . . . Roses, roses 
all the way for the ingenue’s room! ... I feel it 
in my bones. ... I wish I was better at pre¬ 
tending!” 

A hush fell on the trio as Damaris turned the 
handle. Of the three Waring alone was gaily antici¬ 
patory. The heart-beats of the other two almost 
seemed to pulsate through the silence. 

Damaris pushed the door open in a sudden panic. 

“The sooner it’s over the better,” she thought. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


133 


With difficulty she brought herself to face Tory, 
to watch for the effect the strange little room had 
upon her: but she felt that she must know. 

For an instant the girl looked round her with 
incredulous eyes. She gave a little gasp. 

“I know it’s rather odd,” said Damaris. a But we 
thought-” 

“Odd? Of course it’s odd! It’s heavenly odd! 
It’s gay and full of colour and sunshine—not a 
bit like England. . . . Oh, Damaris! ...” Tory 
fell silent, looking round her delightedly. “How did 
you think of it? How did you know I should love 
all those queer brilliant birds? And the darling 
little green parrakeets and oranges on the furni¬ 
ture. . . . Damaris!” 

For the first time since Damaris had seen her a 
smile broke over the girl’s face, irradiating it. She 
ran to her aunt, put her strong young arms round 
her, hugged her and rubbed a sunburnt cheek against 
her face in a perfectly spontaneous caress. 

“Dear child, I am so glad that you like it,” 
Damaris murmured. 

Tory held her away from her and looked into 
her eyes. “Why? Weren’t you sure?” 

“Not absolutely,” Damaris admitted. “It was 
Christopher Brooke’s idea. I only carried it out. 
He insisted on this scheme. He said you would 
like sunny walls and heaps of colour after having 
lived all your life abroad.” 

“He seems to be a man of sense,” said Tory, 
letting her hands drop from Damaris’s shoulders, the 
momentary rapport between them slackening at the 
girl’s discovery that it was another person who had 
designed her delightful room. “I might have 



134 


GOLDEN DISHES 


known/’ she thought. “I know in her heart she 
yearned for pink and white! However, it was decent 
of her, and clever too, to realize that this Brooke 
man might be right. One must credit her with that! 

. . . How on earth could Brooke know that I should 
like this sort of thing?” she asked aloud. 

“He knew it from your picture,” Damaris 
answered, smiling. “He studied that before he 
evolved this scheme.” 

“Rather smart of him.” 

“I told you that he was an artist.” Damaris 
paused, then plunged. “But Tory, dear, it’s not— 
not quite customary for young girls to speak of men 
by their surnames without prefix.” 

“Not in England, perhaps,” Tory conceded. “But 
in France and Italy—everywhere—I always called 
Nutkin’s pals by their surnames, tout court” 

“Well, but this is England and Mr. Brooke isn’t 
a—a pal of your father’s,” Damaris demurred un¬ 
comfortably. 

“No, but he soon will be, I’m sure,” returned 
Tory with disconcerting nonchalance. “Don’t worry 
over such trifles, old thing. It’s no wonder to me 
now that your hair turned white so long ago.” 

“She’s a minx, Damaris,” said Waring, who had 
been listening with some amusement to the con¬ 
versation, laughing and tying his daughter’s plaits 
round her neck. “Please pull her up whenever 
she does anything ultra-outrageous.” 

Damaris smiled without answering. She had seen 
a red spark of rebellion in Tory’s eyes at the men¬ 
tion of the pulling-up process, and felt that she had 
better “let well alone.” Her timid reproof had been 
far more disconcerting to corrector than corrected. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


135 


Still, an awkward moment had been successfully 
bridged. The strain of meeting was over. First 
impressions were blunting into the greater assurance 
of knowledge. They had lost their edge already. 
Damaris turned to leave her guests. 

“Dinner is at a quarter to eight,” she said. “You 
will want to unpack and rest. If you are sure that 
there is nothing more that I can do for you-” 

“Not a thing,” cried Tory hastily. 

“You don’t dress for dinner, Damaris?” asked 
Waring, dismayed. 

“I always change,” smiled Damaris, “but you 
needn’t unless you like. Do remember, both of you, 
that my one wish is that you should be happy here. 
Remember that it’s your home, and that you can 
do exactly as you like.” 

“You mean that?” asked Tory. 

“Absolutely.” 

“Ah! . . . Then I needn’t wear any stockings!” 
She sat down on the floor and began to unlace her 
shoes. 

Damaris slipped away. Waring strolled over to 
the white-framed mirror and looked at himself with 
interest. 

“Damaris is a darling,” he mused. “But please 
don’t be in too great a hurry to shock her, Pixy. 
She’s hyper-sensitive, and as you say, a trifle old- 
fashioned. How could she be anything else, dear 
thing? . . . Hang it all, I wish my beard didn’t 
grow so fast! My chin’s positively blue! I’ll have 
to shave again before dinner. ... We must both 
make concessions.” He sighed. Bohemia in ret¬ 
rospect had its attractions. 

“What’s yours?” 



136 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“An extra shave. Yours is at least to wear shoes. 
Bare legs are quite enough for a start.” 

“Is she such a prude, then?” 

“No, no, no, you little wretch. . . . She’s the 
dearest thing possible—never forget that—but she’s 
led a very sheltered life. Never forget that either.” 

Tory groaned and threw a stocking on the floor. 
“The next picture you sell you’ll have to buy me 
the little grey books! I shall never remember all 
these things without taking a course of some kind.” 

Waring came back to her and tilted up her chin. 

“Remember at any rate how awfully good and 
generous Damaris has been to us both, my pigling.” 

Tory jerked away her head. “Remember it your¬ 
self! I’m not altogether a beast, Nutkin!” 

“Yes, you are,” Waring teased her. “A scratchy, 
bitey, snarly little beast! . . . Come along, hedge- 
pig, and unpack my valise for me.” He slipped his 
arm round her shoulders, pulled her off the floor 
and drew her towards the door. 

Suddenly she turned on him. 

“Nutkin, you won’t ever like any one better than 
me, will you?” 

He swung her round to face him. “I knew it 
was that! . . . Double-distilled goose, aren’t you 
bone of my bone, and marrow as well? Don’t you 
know that I could never like any one in the world 
a millionth part as well as I like you?” 

“Not even Damaris?” 

He put his finger on her questioning lips. 

“Damaris is of our blood. Let that suffice. There 
can be no comparison. Don’t be so melodramatic!” 

He caught her plaits and drove her down the 
corridor before him, 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


AMARIS, too excited to rest, dressed 
early. She had just changed into a 
simple little black frock and was fas¬ 
tening Miss Packe’s string of good but 
yellowish pearls round her throat, when 
the seventh chime of the grandfather clock in the 
hall and a knock at her bedroom door sounded 
simultaneously. 

“Come in,” she cried, hoping that it might be 
Tory, while her inner consciousness assured her 
that it was not. 

Benson entered. “Lady Salmarais is in the 
drawing-room, miss. She would like to see you for 
a minute.” 

“I’m just ready, Benson. She’s rather a late 
visitor, isn’t she?” 

“People don’t seem to mind what hour they call 
in the country,” returned Benson with resignation. 
“I asked Briggs about the wine, miss, and he says 
that he thinks Burgundy is always safe drinking to 
provide for gentlemen.” 

“Oh, thanks, Benson. That will be all right, then. 
Mr. Waring can tell us later on exactly what he 
likes.” 

“And no doubt will, miss,” returned Benson dryly. 
She hesitated, then became suddenly human. “Miss 
Damaris, you look very black , if you’ll excuse me 
saying so! As it’s an occasion, like, wouldn’t you 
wear one of those pink roses? Do, miss.” 

137 












138 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Before Damaris could do more than demur Ben¬ 
son’s deft fingers had whipped a pale pink rose 
from its vase, dried its stem and skilfully fastened 
it in front of her mistress’s frock. 

The touch of colour enhanced the delicate rose of 
Damaris’s cheek and added a new reality to her 
sense of festival. It always pleased her, too, when 
Benson became human. She was the one link left 
between past and present, and in many material 
ways had been just as great a help to the bewildered 
heiress as Christopher Brooke. 

“Thanks, Benson. That’s a great improvement,” 
she cried gaily, as she nodded to her reflection in 
the glass. “I don’t know what I should do without 
you.” 

“Thank you, miss,” returned Benson, well pleased. 

Damaris ran downstairs like a girl, wondering 
what had brought Lady Salmarais to Paradell at 
such an unusual hour. She bent her head to inhale 
the rose’s fragrance as she went. 

“Poor old Aunt Charlotte wouldn’t mind, I’m 
sure,” she thought, with a faint qualm at her little 
defiance of convention. “Strange, how often I miss 
her! Still, no one could really mourn for one so 
old as she. What did life mean for her all those 
later years? . . . What does it mean for me, for 
the matter of that? . . . Service, I suppose. Mak¬ 
ing other people happy. With a possible star shin¬ 
ing at the end of the vista. ... A possible star!” 

Her own eyes shone as she softly opened the 
drawing-room door and went in. A whiff of still 
lingering cigarette-smoke assailed her sensitive nos¬ 
trils as she entered. 

Lady Salmarais did not hear her approach. She 


GOLDEN DISHES 


139 


was standing at the other end of the room looking 
through the French windows at something which 
was as yet out of Damaris’s line of vision. Her 
broad tweed-clad back was stiff with a disapproval 
of which Damaris was instantly conscious. She 
shook her broad-brimmed garden hat slowly from 
side to side, as she leaned on the back of a chair, 
peering forward. 

“ ’Tis Tory, I suppose,” thought Damaris, with 
an instant sinking of her heart, as a strange sound 
of tapping and sliding—a whispering as of light and 
active feet—came to her ears. 

She drew quietly nearer and peeped over the 
unconscious Lady Salmarais’s shoulder. 

Tory, in a short flame-coloured frock, with bare 
brown legs and white sandals, was dancing wildly 
on the flagged terrace with her father, whose con¬ 
cession to the convention of evening dress appeared 
to be a velvet jacket and a flamboyant black silk tie. 

Up and down they whirled, intricately stepping 
and pirouetting, with hands clasped or arms up¬ 
raised to suit their fantasy, circling alone or twirl¬ 
ing madly together. 

It was an unusual and a diverting spectacle. 

For a horrified moment Damaris beheld it through 
the eyes of Lady Salmarais, and wondered tremu¬ 
lously what she thought of it! She had been so 
anxious for Roland to erase early unfavourable im¬ 
pressions from that autocratic lady’s mind. She 
had meant to arrange a carefully stage-managed 
meeting between them to that end, but this unex¬ 
pected visit had upset all her innocent schemes. 
It was too bad. She wished fervently that Lady 
Salmarais had not been quite so informal, forgetting 


140 


GOLDEN DISHES 


for the moment—so variable and unreasonable is 
human nature—how heart-warming she had found 
such informality a little earlier. 

Standing spellbound for a moment, she suddenly 
pulled herself together. It would not do to prolong 
the episode lest the situation should grow unduly 
awkward. She moved silently backwards towards 
the door. 

“I am becoming quite an expert at taking bulls 
by their horns!” she thought, as she moved a chair 
to give warning of her presence and exclaimed, as 
naturally as she could: “Good-evening, Lady Sal- 
marais. How kind of you to come and see me again 
so soon!” 

Lady Salmarais started and swung slowly round 
as if on an invisible pivot. Her short-sighted brown 
eyes bore a fixed look. Her chins quivered, but 
with disapproval rather than embarrassment. She, 
the great lady of Thornycross, was always the mis¬ 
tress of any situation in which she found herself. 
It was for others to feel themselves embarrassed, not 
for her. 

“Ah, Damaris, I did not hear you come in,” she 
said, extending a majestic hand. “I was looking at 
these—are they entertainers?” she asked on a note 
of horrified surprise. 

Her tone, far from upsetting Damaris, suddenly 
restored her poise. She smiled as she answered 
easily: “Not professional ones. They are my brother 
Roland and his little girl, who have just arrived 
from Paris.” 

“Ah, Paris!” ejaculated Lady Salmarais, nodding 
as if the name at once provided excuse and expla¬ 
nation. “Yes, yes. I remember you telling me 


GOLDEN DISHES 141 

something about expecting your step-brother. He 
is an artist, I think you said.” 

“Yes. Quite a well-known one. You must meet 
him.” Damaris, desirous of instantly tackling 
another and more awkward bull, went quickly to 
the French window. “Roland, an old friend is here, 
Lady Salmarais. Come in and renew your acquaint¬ 
ance with her.” 

“My dear Damaris, I can only stay a minute. I 
merely came to tell you that I’ve found you a boot 
boy. Pray do not disturb Mr.—er—Waring.” 

But Mr. Waring, in no wise perturbed, had been 
already disturbed. Bringing his dance to an abrupt 
conclusion, he stepped at once into the drawing¬ 
room and advanced on his old enemy with out¬ 
stretched hand. 

“Ah, Lady Salmarais, time has indeed stood still 
with you,” he exclaimed. “I should have known 
you anywhere. You have not changed in the least. 
. . . Except for an extra chin or two and a hirsute 
growth which would be highly creditable to a per¬ 
son of the opposite sex!” he added inwardly, his 
face set to a ceremonial solemnity which the twinkle 
in his blue eyes belied. 

“That’s more than I can say for you,” returned 
Lady Salmarais regretfully. “You used to be a 
handsome boy.” 

Roland Waring threw back his head and laughed. 

“Delicious!” he cried. “Now I know that I am 
really at home. Only an Englishwoman could have 
said that.” 

“I hope that we are at least candid,” began Lady 
Salmarais stiffly. “Your foreign experiences, no 
doubt-” 



142 


GOLDEN DISHES 


•‘Have convinced me that there is no place in the 
world like England,” Waring thrust, with a disarm¬ 
ing sincerity. “How is Hubert? I suppose he is 
married and father of a prosperous family by this.” 

“My son is well, but as yet he has devoted his 
time more to scientific pursuits than to the culti¬ 
vation of the eternal feminine.” Lady Salmarais 
drew herself up, feeling that she had said something 
distinctly clever, if not actually epigrammatic. 

“More fool he,” returned Waring lightly. “Kind 
hearts are more than coronets and a charming wife 
than Hampshire beetles! ... He still collects, 
then?” 

“Yes. He is writing a book on the subject.” 
Lady Salmarais was glad to edge away from the 
topic of matrimony. She did not want any one but 
Hubert himself to put ideas on the subject into 
Damaris’s head. 

“He might do worse. On the contrary he might 
do a great deal better.” Waring suddenly became 
mischievously reminiscent. “I hope he is more 
careful now. I remember having great difficulty 
long ago in pulling him out of a pond into which he 
had fallen in the pursuit of his hobby.” 

“Fallen? Why-” 

“We hope so much that you and Sir Hubert will 
come and dine with us one day next week,” inter¬ 
rupted Damaris hastily. 

“We shall be delighted, my dear. But why this 
formality? Surely you called each other Hubert and 
Damaris in the old days,” said Lady Salmarais with 
ponderous gaiety, as she rose to go. 

Damaris smiled. “I was only a child then. We 
are practically strangers now.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 143 

“No, no. Your mother’s daughter could never be 
a stranger at Shotton.” 

“Nor my mother’s son,” put in Damaris, with a 
significance which Lady Salmarais had not expected. 

She looked at her with a new respect. ... If 
Damaris insisted on their accepting this strange, 
foreign-looking creature, then accepted he must be. 
It would not be politic to alienate the dear girl in any 
way just yet. 

“Of course,” Lady Salmarais returned graciously. 
“Mr.—er—Roland has his poor mother’s eyes, at 
any rate.” 

“And what have I got?” asked a gay impudent 
voice behind them. 

“Too much original sin,” exclaimed Waring, turn¬ 
ing apprehensively. 

For the moment every one had forgotten Tory, 
who had been an interested spectator of the little 
scene from the French window. She came forward 
now with the easy litheness of some little wild ani¬ 
mal, and stood before Lady Salmarais with tilted 
head and questioning eyes, her plaits swung over 
her shoulders. 

“And who may you be, child?” asked Lady Sal¬ 
marais coldly. 

She knew perfectly well, of course, but she was 
obliged to show that she resented such impertinent 
familiarity. 

“This is my daughter, Victoria,” answered War¬ 
ing, taking the hint and presenting Tory with due 
formality. 

Lady Salmarais shook hands, glancing disapproval 
at the bare legs and abbreviated skirt. 

“Ah! You called her after your poor mother. 


144 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Very proper. Very proper, indeed, though I am 
afraid she bears no resemblance whatsoever to her 
dear grandmother.” 

Damaris drew a deep breath. She dreaded Tory’s 
effect on Lady Salmarais only one degree less than 
Lady Salmarais’s effect on Tory. 

“And how old are you, Victoria?” Lady Sal¬ 
marais imagined that she liked children, in their 
proper place, naturally. . . . well-behaved, well- 
brought-up children, of course. . . . Had this un¬ 
fortunate child of Roland Waring’s been brought up 
at all, she wondered. It did not look like it. 

“Seventeen,” answered Tory calmly. 

“Seventeen!” Lady Salmarais positively paled. 

“Yes. Do you think I’m tall for my age? Isn’t 
that the proper comment to make?” 

“Seventeen! I had my hair up at seventeen and 
wore skirts down to the ground! ” 

“Mon Dieu! How uncomfortable you must have 
been!” cried Tory. “Don’t you envy me?” 

Lady Salmarais breathed heavily. In a less 
exalted personage the sound would have been called 
a snort. 

“Envy you? I think you ought to be ashamed 
of yourself, miss!” she exclaimed in a loud severe 
tone. “Damaris, my carriage, please.” 

Damaris cast a glance of appeal at Roland as she 
went with Lady Salmarais to the door, which he 
sprang to open. 

“I want to ask your advice about a good school 
for P—Victoria,” he said with his charming smile, 
snatching at the first idea that presented itself, 
as he escorted the outraged lady across the hall. 

“I fear that it is far too late for such measures,” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


145 


Lady Salmarais returned in a tone that quivered 
with indignation. “Perhaps I was hasty in my 
strictures on that—that poor girl. It is you, Roland 
Waring, who should be blamed.” 

Roland bowed his head in thankful submission. 

“Entirely. For Pix—Victoria’s shortcomings I 
alone am to blame.” 

Lady Salmarais melted slightly. “Ah, well, a 
man, and a widower, too, is sadly handicapped. 
You should have sent the child to a good school from 
the beginning.” 

“I should indeed,” Waring returned, prepared to 
abase himself still further. He might have suc¬ 
ceeded had Tory been content to let well alone. 

“Rot, Nutkin! You know perfectly well that I 
wouldn’t have stayed at any school.” Tory’s clear 
young voice rang through the hall. “I’m sorry if 
I’ve shocked you, Lady Salmarais, but I can’t have 
you blaming Nutkin for my up-bringing. From 
the very first I always bullied him into letting me 
do exactly as I liked—didn’t I, Nutkin? I’ve got 
my education from life itself, not from any silly 
old books about life. And Nutkin always says that 
first-hand knowledge is all that really counts in any 
subject, so there you are! I bet I know more about 
life than you do, Lady Salmarais,” Tory continued 
with a large tolerance that held her hearers dumb. 
“And I’ll tell you one thing. There are worse things 
in the world than bare legs!” 

Lady Salmarais was silent for a moment, but 
rather from excess than paucity of ideas. Then, 
casting one withering glance at the offending naked 
limbs, she said: “I doubt it!” as she majestically 
descended the steps. 


146 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Roland Waring, assisting her into the phaeton, felt 
that there was nothing more to be said. Even his 
ingenious mind, rack it as he would, could find no 
mollifying trifle to present on the silver platter of a 
smile. As he tucked the dust-rug about her knee he 
ventured on a disarming: 

“Please don’t blame Damaris for our shortcom¬ 
ings, Lady Salmarais.” 

“I am much more likely to pity her,” returned 
Lady Salmarais coldly. 

“Then that’s all right,” cried Roland, his spirits 
rising again. “I promise you that we’ll only dance 
the can-can in strictest privacy for the future! ” 

“I should hope so, indeed. Home, William.” 

The small groom released the somnolent pony’s 
head and sprang to his perch. 

Lady Salmarais shook the reins, and the pony 
ambled away. She kept an offended back towards 
the house. She did not turn to wave a friendly 
hand as usual. The wheels of her chariot sounded 
unduly loud as they crunched over the newly-spread 
gravel. 

“I’m afraid that’s put the lid on it,” said Roland 
ruefully as he went back to the silently-waiting pair 
on the steps. “Pixy, my pigling, you’ve cooked our 
goose for us as far as Thornycross society is con¬ 
cerned, if that’s any satisfaction to you.” 

“Who cares for Thornycross society? We are 
citoyens du monde, thou and I, my Nutkin.” Tory 
rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. 

“Perhaps Damaris cares,” Waring suggested, with 
a whimsical look at his sister. 

Damaris, peering deep into her heart, shook her 
head. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


147 


“I don’t believe I do—much anyhow. Of course 
I want to live on friendly terms with my neighbours, 
but they don’t really count. You do.” 

Tory shot a quick incredulous glance at her. 

“I didn’t believe that you meant what you said 
about wanting us to be happy in our own way. I 
do now.” 

“I did mean it,” Damaris asserted, even as she 
wished that happiness for Tory did not consist in 
going about with bare legs and so negligible a skirt. 
“I, too, want to be citoyenne du monde.” She 
brought out her little French phrase with a timid 
bravery that touched Waring. 

“Bravo! Not at all a bad accent, either,” said 
Tory. “Pity you don’t know any monde but one, 
though.” 

“Perhaps even I can teach you something of that 
one,” returned Damaris quietly. “I think we had 
better go on a shopping expedition to Bournemouth 
tomorrow. You must want clothes, Tory, if you’ve 
brought only two suit-cases with you.” 

“I’ve got plenty of clothes for the present. Be¬ 
side, I am certainly not going to Bournemouth if 
that man Brooke is coming over here on his motor¬ 
bicycle.” 

“What has that to do with you, O Pixy?” 

“I want to see it, Nutkin. I want to get him to 
take me for a ride on it and to go as fast as ever 
we can.” 

“He may not want to do that.” 

“Of course he’ll want it, Nutkin. I can always 
get on with men. They understand me far better 
than women do.” She spoke without arribre pensee, 
as if she merely stated an interesting fact, but her 


148 


GOLDEN DISHES 


remark pricked Damaris after her own generous 
effort at understanding. 

“Christopher Brooke doesn’t like girls,” she said 
with a faint touch of triumph. “He’s afraid of 
them.” 

“He won’t be afraid of me. If he had been he 
wouldn’t have known what sort of a room I’d like. 
Vous y etes?” 

Damaris was. The argument was incontrovertible. 
“I wonder how you’ll get on with Sir Hubert Sal- 
marais,” she reflected. 

“What’s he like?” 

“A benevolent mastiff,” put in Waring quickly. 
“At least he used to be long ago, with his solemn 
brown eyes and heavy jowl.” 

Damaris smiled. “He is still.” She laughed. 
“Yes. He’s exactly like a mastiff.” 

“Take care, Damaris. Mamma Mastiff has her 
eye on you for her precious pup.” 

“Nonsense, Roland.” Damaris reddened angrily. 
The suggestion was insufferable. “Please don’t say 
such ridiculous things.” 

“That’s not ridiculous. You’re an heiress now, 
my dear. A catch! And Dried-Stick Hubert is 
another! It would be an excellent match.” 

“Please, don’t, Roland,” said Damaris again. “I 
don’t like it.” 

Waring whistled softly. “Now why in the world 
doesn’t she like it?” he mused. “Women adore being 
chaffed about that sort of thing unless—unless there 
is another Richmond in the field. Can it be pos¬ 
sible? And if so, why isn’t he in evidence? Is she 
waiting until dinner has mellowed me to break the 
news that she contemplates introducing a cuckoo 


GOLDEN DISHES 


149 


into this cosy nest that will eventually hump these 
poor sparrows out into a cold world again? . . . 
Perish the thought!” 

The gong boomed softly in the hall behind them. 
Waring seized a hand of sister and daughter. 

“Joyous sound!” he cried. “Come, let us at 
once thank God for a good dinner. I can smell the 
fatted calf already!” 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


Lady Salmarais neared the massive 
Georgian front of Shotton Court a tall 
heavily-built figure in evening dress 
came down the steps to meet her, watch 
in hand. It was her son, Hubert. 

He held the dial up reproachfully. “Ten to 
eight, mother. You’ll never dress in ten minutes.” 

“Plenty of time, my dear. I can get into a tea- 
gown in five.” 

“Where have you been? I was growing anxious.” 

“About your dinner or about me?” asked Lady 
Salmarais, with the heavy humour which she kept 
strictly for her only child. 

Sir Hubert helped her out of the phaeton and 
drew her arm through his as they went up the 
steps together. 

“Both,” he answered frankly. “Mother, I wish 
you’d use the victoria. An active snail could beat 
Dapple.” 

“Dear, how amusing you are!” Lady Salmarais 
smiled fondly at her son. . . . One may be cer¬ 
tain that she saw in neither brown eyes nor square 
jaw the faintest resemblance to a mastiff. . . . 
“Dapple suits me admirably for pottering about the 
village. The horses still hate motors, you know.” 

“Then why not let me get you a motor?” 

“Hubert, I could not endure it. Get one for 
your wife, if you like.” 

“But I haven’t got a wife.” 

“It is high time you had, my dear boy.” 

Lady Salmarais left her son to ponder over this 
150 










GOLDEN DISHES 


151 


suggestion as she went to her room to dress. She 
knew that Hubert took a long time to assimilate 
any new ideas which were unconnected with cole- 
optera. She desired this one to sink in. 

They had no further opportunity for intimate 
conversation until they were left alone with dessert 
by a butler who had completely satisfied himself 
that nothing more remained to be done. 

“I’m afraid that these must be the last of the 
raspberries,” said Sir Hubert regretfully. 

“They’ve been in for quite a long time,” returned 
Lady Salmarais, with unusual lack of sympathy. 
“Hubert, I had rather a surprise this afternoon. 
I saw Roland Waring at Paradell. You remember 
him long ago? Damaris Packe’s step-brother.” 

Sir Hubert’s somewhat heavy face lightened sur¬ 
prisingly. 

“I should rather think I did remember old Roland. 
When did he turn up? A lively spark if ever there 
was one!” 

“Too lively,” corroborated Lady Salmarais coldly. 

“His object in life, so far as I was concerned, was 
to stiffen my backbone and show me life. . . . 
He did his best, I rather think.” Hubert smiled 
reminiscently. 

“He tried to deprive you of life once by pushing 
you into a pond. I have never forgotten it.” 

“But he pulled me out again immediately. Prob¬ 
ably my foot slipped in the first instance.” 

“It did nothing of the sort. He pushed you in 
deliberately. You might have been drowned.” 

“Mother! In a foot or so of water! Nonsense! 
How is old Roland? Has he changed? Did he ask 
for me?” 


152 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Yes.” Lady Salmarais wished that she could 
conscientiously have said “Np,” but she prided 
herself on her candour. “I never could understand 
your infatuation for him, Hubert—a ne’er-do-weel, 
an idler and now—an artist! In a black velveteen 
coat, with ridiculous little side-whiskers!” 

“I can’t picture the old boy with whiskers . . . 
hairy! He was always well-brushed long ago.” 

“He is well enough brushed, as you call it, now. 
Sleek, in fact. But that coat . . . and a flowing 
tie! ” 

“He was always different from other people. That 
was what attracted me most, I think,” mused Hubert. 
“He was so gay, so witty, so full of life. Beside 
him I always felt as a lamellicorn might near a Red 
Admiral butterfly.” 

“A ridiculous comparison!” said Lady Salmarais. 
“Though I don’t in the least know what a lamelli¬ 
corn is. People have no right to be different from 
other people. It’s bad form—though indeed nobody 
seems to care much about form nowadays. I never 
could find out who Mr. Waring was. Victoria 
Clyffard met him at a school friend’s in London, 
where she lived afterwards until his death, as he 
did not care for the country. Then she came back 
to Paradell with the boy, and some years after¬ 
wards married Edgar Packe. Now, the Packes were 
all right,” she ended, on a totally different note, 
looking significantly at her son. 

But Sir Hubert was not concerned with the gene- 
alogy of the Packes. His thoughts were entirely 
preoccupied with the brilliant friend of his youth 
whom he had never forgotten and who now, appar- 


GOLDEN DISHES 153 

ently, was to flash, meteor-like, across his path once 
more. 

“Roland married, didn’t he?” 

“Yes.” Lady Salmarais’s chins quivered sud¬ 
denly. “He is now, fortunately, a widower.” 

“Fortunately?” Hubert raised his bushy brows. 

“One can only conjecture the sort of creature he 
would have married!” 

“How?” 

“By the child she left him.” 

“Ah, there is a child?” Sir Hubert was inter¬ 
ested in children and wonderfully unafraid of them 
for a man of his type. 

“Yes. A girl. Seventeen. Bare-legged and no 
clothes.” The words shot out like bullets. “A 
minx! ” 

“No clothes? What do you mean, mother?” 

“Well, next to none. Bare legs, bare neck, bare 
arms. All as brown as a nut, showing that it is 
no new thing.” 

Hubert laughed. It was no mere chuckle of 
amusement, but a hearty, rolling peal of laughter, 
such as it usually delighted his mother to hear, but 
which now vaguely offended her. 

“My dear mother, have you never been to Bourne¬ 
mouth in the summer?” 

“Certainly not. Bournemouth is impossible in 
the summer, as you are perfectly well aware.” 

“It’s quite amusing, all the same. The costume 
you described is rather the rule than the exception 
there.” 

“Which shows that I am completely justified in 
my description of the place,” returned Lady Sal- 
marais coldly. 


154 


GOLDEN DISHES 


The conversation had not taken the trend she 
wished. The obnoxious Warings had completely 
ousted Damaris from it. She could not, as it were, 
drag her in by the heels again. . . . How difficult 
life was, especially when one wanted to marry one’s 
son to an heiress! . . .For years she had con¬ 
gratulated herself upon Hubert’s indifference to 
feminine charm. Now she felt inclined to deplore 
it. It was only human nature, after all, to show 
more interest in a pretty woman than in a beetle 
. . . or in a flighty Bohemian! 

She rose, with an uncomfortable sense of having 
been flouted once more by Roland Waring. Hubert 
rose too, and went to open the door. 

“I think I’ll stroll over to Paradell and see old 
Roland this evening, mother,” he said. 

Lady Salmarais paused in her progress and turned 
astonished eyes on him. 

“Scarcely a suitable hour for a call,” she said. 

“One needn’t stand on ceremony with old friends, 
surely. In the old days I used to be in and out of 
Paradell at all hours.” He looked at her depre- 
catingly. 

Old friends! . . . The use of the plural rather 
than the singular roused Lady Salmarais’s droop¬ 
ing spirits. 

What if this were but an innocent ruse on the 
dear boy’s part? What if it were Damaris that he 
really desired to see and cleverly made Roland the 
excuse? It was not for her to thwart him. 

Hubert breathed freely again at the sudden bright¬ 
ening of his mother’s face. He had never really 
got over his boyish awe of her: had never openly 
defied or thwarted her in any way except by his 


GOLDEN DISHES 


155 


friendship with Roland Waring, which had persisted 
despite her obvious disapproval. He was a little 
surprised now at her change of front, but infinitely 
relieved. 

“Don’t stay too late, dear,” Lady Salmarais said 
graciously, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Re¬ 
member that Damaris might prefer to have her 
people to herself just at first.” 

“Oh, she won’t mind. She seems a good sort,” 
answered Sir Hubert carelessly. 

Even his mother could not consider his tone 
impassioned. Still, it showed some appreciation of 
Damaris Packe’s qualities, and the Salmarais were 
not of those who wore their hearts upon their sleeves. 
Remembering this, Lady Salmarais quietly with¬ 
drew her hand. 

“I shall say good-night now, dear,” she said. “I 
mean to go to bed early. I have had a tiring day.” 

“I shan’t disturb you, then. Good-night, mother. 
Sleep well.” It was his invariable formula. 

When he had gone a terrible thought assailed 
Lady Salmarais. Was there any fear that that minx 
would set her impudent cap at Hubert? She looked 
like a child, it is true, but she spoke like a woman 
of the world, and not the best world either! . . . 
For an instant she had a wild desire to pursue her 
son down the avenue, to call him back upon any 
pretext, however trivial. 

Then she reflected that he had probably taken the 
short cut through the woods to Paradell, and that 
in any case she could not now overtake him. She 
must only put her trust in that Providence which, 
so far, had never failed her, and leave it to the 
Salmarais blood to repel any undesirable advances. 


156 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“But men are so easily deceived where women 
are concerned,” she mused. “Hubert might pos¬ 
sibly be as wax in the hands of a designing creature.” 

Lady Salmarais did not sleep until she heard her 
son’s heavy footsteps go down the corridor long 
after eleven o’clock. He went whistling softly to 
his room as if he had enjoyed his unorthodox 
evening call. 

She gave a sigh of relief as she turned and com¬ 
posed herself to slumber. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

>Y SALMARAIS might not have slept 
3 tranquilly had she been able to follow 
er son to Paradell. They were sitting 
i the pleasance on the stone ledge of 
le now cleared lily-pond—Waring and 
Tory smoking, Damaris dipping her fingers in the 
water—when Benson came out with her news of 
this fresh arrival. A crescent moon hung beside a 
star in the turquoise sky. Already a bat fluttered 
here and there. 

“Sir Hubert Salmarais to see Mr. Waring,” she 
said. 

“Where have you put him, Benson?” asked 
Damaris. 

“In the drawing-room, miss.” 

“Ask him to come out.” 

“No. I’ll go in to him,” said Waring hastily, 
throwing his cigarette into the pond. “I’ll bring him 
out then if he cares to come. By the way, Damaris, 
I suppose I can use the library while I’m here, as 
a sitting-room—smoke-room sort of place. The 
studio’s rather far away-” 

Damaris stiffened in the faintest degree. 

“I’m sorry, Roland, but nothing has been done to 
the library as yet. The place isn’t half finished, you 
know.” She hesitated. . . . Was she being horribly 
selfish? . . . Then she continued quickly. “Be¬ 
sides, I rather thought of keeping the library for 
my own special use. I must have some place in 
157 








158 GOLDEN DISHES 

which to interview people, do accounts and that sort 
of thing.” 

“Oh, of course, of course. I only thought that 
when men come to see me-” 

“Fll have the morning-room put in order for you 
at once. Of course you must have a place to which 
you can take your men friends, if you wish. Though, 
indeed, the whole house is yours, my dear-” 

“Except the library, apparently. Essentially the 
man’s room,” said Waring smiling. For whom was 
the library being held in reserve? Was Damaris 
really going to spring this unexpected cuckoo on 
them, after all? Even in the blue dusk he could 
see her flush. ... He bent to touch her cheek as 
he passed her. It was burning. “I am quite con¬ 
tent, little sister. What have I to do with forms 
and ceremonies?” 

He went up the steps with his quick springing 
gait, leaving Damaris with a guilty sense of having 
been intensely selfish. Still, she held firm to her 
decision. 

The library was for Ludlow Tempest if he ever 
came back into her life. She would not cede it, 
even to Roland. He could have the rest of the house 
at his command. Only that one room was taboo. 

Suddenly she took a resolve to leave it as it was 
for the present, with its furniture unplaced, its 
carpet unrolled, its books unpacked, its curtains 
unhung. Then no one could expect to use it. There 
was so much else that needed her attention: the 
new wing, the furnishing of this extra sitting-room 
for Roland, the garden. There would be endless 
claims upon her time. The library could wait, and 
while waiting, be practically non-existent. 




GOLDEN DISHES 


159 


She checked a sigh. . . . Why was she sighing on 
this day of dreams come true? She was a little 
tired, she told herself. She, the recluse, had opened 
her doors to life, and now life, rushing in, suddenly 
piped a tune too fast for her to dance to. Out of her 
solitude she had stepped into a crowd. The swift 
change made her head spin. She looked across at 
Tory, who sat on the ledge of the lily-pond, dab¬ 
bling her feet in the water. In the half-light they 
looked as white as the dreaming lilies when she held 
them up to watch the crystal drops trickling from 
her toes and rounded heels. 

“What a child she is in some ways,” Damaris 
thought. “And yet how—how sophisticated in 
others! I feel as if there were a barrier of glass 
between us: something through which I can see and 
hear her, but cannot touch her. I can’t break it, 
either. I feel that if I did I should cut either myself 
or her, and I daren’t risk that. . . . Oh, what an 
absurd, fantastic idea!” 

She could not know that in Tory’s breast burned a 
new and smarting fire, the fire of jealousy. Each 
caress, each tenderness of Waring to his sister 
pricked her like a thorn. The girl did not realize 
what was the matter with her, for she had never 
come across any one before who claimed equal 
rights in her father with herself, and she resented it 
hotly. She had a fierce desire to hurt some one, 
Damaris for choice, and yet that queer sense of 
fairness, which was one of the few principles which 
Waring had tried to instil into his child, forbade her 
to do this. She wanted to fly at Damaris and scathe 
her for not having given up the library to Nutkin at 
once, the while justice reminded her that Damaris 


160 


GOLDEN DISHES 


had already allotted some of the best rooms in the 
house to their private use and made them free of all 
the others save this one. 

She shrugged her shoulders. Inaction irked her. 
She had not had sufficient exercise of late to work 
off the energy that seethed within her. 

“Nutkin must find his beetle-man amusing,” she 
exclaimed suddenly. “I wish he’d bring him out 
here and let him talk to us. I haven’t had a man 
to talk to since we left Paris.” 

“I’m afraid you won’t find many men to talk to 
here, Tory. Young men, I mean. The Vicar is old, 
and so is Major Okenden. Sir Hubert is forty-” 

“There’s Brooke. How old is he?” 

“Mr. Brooke is about twenty-four, I think.” 

“Twenty-four is quite a good age. . . . Oh, la, la, 
I can’t stand this any longer. I must dance or do 
something.” Tory sprang to her feet in one lithe 
movement and posed for an instant on the grey 
stone ledge. “Get up, please, Damaris. I want to 
dance along here.” 

Damaris rose. “Take care you don’t fall in.” 

“I’d rather like to fall in. If it weren’t so weedy 
and shallow I’d like to bathe here. Meantime ...” 
She began to dance, her arms weaving a rhythmic 
balance as she tripped, light-foot, round the lily- 
pond. 

A moment later there was the sound of steps on 
the terrace, and Damaris, looking up, saw three 
figures coming towards her. The lamps in the draw¬ 
ing-room had just been lighted and the glow behind 
them threw the approaching figures into silhouette. 

Roland’s voice came through the dusk. 

“Damaris, Hubert Salmarais has come to see us. 



GOLDEN DISHES 


161 


And here is Mr. Brooke, whose motor-bicycle has 
broken down just outside Thornycross and who 
craves your hospitality.” 

Damaris went quickly to meet them. 

“You’re not hurt, I hope,” she said to Brooke, 
ignoring her more important visitor. 

“Not a bit, thanks. I’m rather dusty, though. I 
must apologize for coming at such an hour, Miss 
Packe, but I’ve already been to the village inn, 
which is full up. I wondered if you could possibly 
give me a shake-down for the night. The hayloft 
would do if you hadn’t a bed-” 

“But of course I’ve a bed. I’ll go and see about 
it at once-” 

“Meantime you’re ignoring a much older friend 
than Mr. Brooke,” said Sir Hubert Salmarais, 
holding out his hand. He felt the same sense of 
stimulation which Roland Waring’s company had 
always induced in him. 

“I’m sorry, Sir Hubert. Please forgive me, and 
excuse me if I run away for a moment. Our 
establishment at present is rather like Kipling’s 
‘Ship that found Herself’—only that Paraded hasn’t 
quite found herself yet!” 

“I think you’ve done wonders in the time, Miss 
Packe. Positive wonders. Pray don’t mind me.” 

At that moment he caught sight of the light 
fantastic figure dancing round the lily-pond, which 
stopped suddenly in a lovely startled pose at their 
approach: then peered through the twilight. 

“Pixy!” called Waring. 

“Ohe, Nutkin, is that you? What have you 
brought me?” 

“A Forest notable and a broken-down motor¬ 
cyclist.” 




162 


GOLDEN DISHES 

Tory took a flying leap off the pond’s edge and 
ran towards them. “Good little Nutkin!” she cried. 
“I was getting so bored!” 

She stopped and looked up into Brooke’s face. 
He loomed very large in his leather coat. He held 
his cap and goggles in one hand. His face looked 
pale in the dusk. 

“You’re Mr. Brooke, of course,” the girl cried. 
“We were just talking of you. What a coincidence! 
I’ve been longing for you to come.” 

“Why?” asked the young man simply, forgetting 
any manners he had ever possessed. 

“Because I want you to take me on your motor¬ 
cycle and let us see how fast we can go.” She 
hid her other reason deep. That was for his ears 
alone. 

Brooke laughed. “Flying’s the stunt for you. 
There’s no speed limit in the air.” 

“Thank heaven! . . . Have you got an aero¬ 
plane?” 

“Not yet. I mean to have one some day, though.” 

Tory’s face fell and her tone flattened. “Some 
day’s no day.” 

“Not for me. Some day’s going to be some day,” 
answered Brooke, a ring in his tone. 

“Let us hope that the day of promiscuous private 
flying is far.distant as yet!” said Sir Hubert Sal- 
marais dryly. 

He was neither unduly conceited nor a devotee of 
women, but he could not help thinking it rather un¬ 
seemly that this youth of no place or position should 
monopolize the attention of the only ladies present. 
He wanted to meet Roland’s daughter—to whom 
Roland himself should certainly have presented him 


GOLDEN DISHES 163 

—and here she was, hanging on the words of this 
nobody and ignoring him altogether! 

“Come along, Brooke,” said Waring. “I’ll take 
you to have a wash while Damaris is seeing about 
getting you something to eat.” 

“I don’t want anything to eat, sir, thanks,” 
Brooke protested, his old shyness rushing back on 
him. “I’m awfully sorry to have disturbed you all 
at such an hour.” 

“Why, my dear boy, it isn’t ten o’clock yet. The 
night is in its merest infancy. You’ll have a drink, 
anyhow. You, too, Hubert. You’d like a whiskey 
and soda and a smoke.” 

“Thanks, Roland, but-” 

“Pixy, look after our Forest notable until I come 
back.” Waring was half-way up the steps when 
he remembered this injunction. 

Sir Hubert made an awkward movement forward. 

“This is a very unceremonious introduction, Miss 
Waring,” he began heavily. “But your father and 
I are such old friends that we need not stand-” 

“No. Let us sit,” cried Tory, suiting the action 
to the word and subsiding on to the steps. “You 
don’t want to go into that stuffy room yet, do you? 
Will you try one of my cigarettes?” She held out 
a tortoise-shell case full of her queer yellow ciga¬ 
rettes. 

Sir Hubert, slightly bewildered, took one. 

“I know all about you,” Tory continued. “Nut- 
kin has often talked of you, and how you and he 
used to go to fairs together, and how he once pushed 
you into a pond, and how fond you were of beetles, 
and everything.” 

“No? Did he really? We were always great 




164 


GOLDEN DISHES 


friends. I missed him horribly when he left 
Thornycross. He hasn’t changed in the least—in 
himself, I mean. He is just as gay, just as brilliant 
as ever, if a little older.” 

“Ah, that’s because of me. I’m a great responsi¬ 
bility, you know.” Tory paused, then went on with 
an elfin grin. “Your mother disapproves of me 
dreadfully.” 

“Oh, no.” The untrue denial forced itself out. 

Tory laughed. “Oh, yes! She was horrified at 
my bare legs.” 

“But—but there are worse things in the world 
than bare legs.” 

“Exactly what I told her, mon vieux!” cried 
Tory. “I see that you and I are going to hit it off 
capitally.” 

Even in the dusk she could see the delighted flash 
of Sir Hubert’s smile. “The foundations of our 
friendship are laid already,” he murmured. 

“Well and truly laid,” Tory declared. “Isn’t that 
the correct expression? Mon vieux, you shall take 
me beetle-hunting in the Forest.” 

“Would you—would you really like to come?” 

“I should adore it. I love beetles and lady-birds 
and earwigs and spiders and moths and butterflies 
—all those creatures.” 

“You are like a butterfly yourself,” said Sir 
Hubert, looking at her with solemn mastiff-eyes. 

It was the first compliment he had ever paid. 
Unfortunately for the portentousness of the occasion 
it was not the first compliment which Tory had ever 
received from one of her father’s friends, so she 
only laughed and said: “Pretty! Pretty!” 

A voice sounded disconsolately from the terrace 
above them. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


165 


“I’m awfully sorry, Hubert, old chap, that I’ve 
offered you what wasn’t there. Damaris has no 
whiskey in the house. It’s too bad, but we’ll get 
some tomorrow. However she has some quite 
drinkable Burgundy. Come and have some.” 

Hubert Salmarais rose feeling a little bewildered. 

“Whiskey? Burgundy?” he echoed. “Who wants 
to drink on a night like this? ... By the way, I’ve 
never smoked your cigarette, Miss-” 

“Please call me Tory like every one else.” 

“Tory, then,” said Sir Hubert, beaming. 

“No poaching,” whispered Waring, as he pulled 
the plait nearest to him. 

Tory laughed. 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


HIS is good!” exclaimed Tory, looking 
round her eagerly, her tawny-gold hair 
dishevelled from the speed of her flight 
on Brooke’s motor-cycle, her grey-green 
eyes bright. “I didn’t think that there 
were places like this in England.” 

“What do you know of England, after all?” said 
Brooke slowly. “You seem to have brought noth¬ 
ing with you but prejudices against her.” 

Tory laughed. “I didn’t bring much luggage, 
certainly.” 

“You needn’t have packed your prejudices in it.” 

“I like all this, though.” 

“That’s really kind of you!” 

Christopher Brooke leaned against the thick 
seamed trunk of a great bronze-crowned oak and 
regarded the girl half-critically, half-wonderingly, 
as she flung herself face downwards on the mossy 
ground at his feet and lay there, chin propped on 
hands, looking, with her bare brown legs and wind- 
tangled hair, like some creature of the Forest itself. 

Beyond them to the right a fir-wood sloped, with 
deeps of blue-green canopied above its slender red¬ 
stemmed colonnades. To the left stretched a won¬ 
derland of hoary oak and beech, interspersed with 
clumps of dark glos|y holly and fairylike silver 
birches. Birds chirped and twittered, and among 
the fir-trees wood-doves crooned. Tracts of bracken 
surged like a green sea about the tree-trunks, cir¬ 
cling sudden hollows where heather and ling glowed 
166 












GOLDEN DISHES 167 

rosily. Now and then a twig cracked unexpectedly 
in the still morning air. 

All at once a distant rumble changed to a drum¬ 
ming of hoofs, and a herd of Forest ponies thun¬ 
dered past, mares and foals, black, bay and brown, 
with heels tossing and long sweeps of mane and 
tail flying joyously in the early sunshine. 

Brooke clapped his hands to speed them. They 
vanished in a flash, leaving a pattering echo which 
stilled suddenly. He turned to Tory, who was 
now sitting cross-legged, facing him. 

“What have you against England?” he asked. 

“Don’t be so boringly persistent. This isn’t a 
morning for quarrelling.” 

“I quite agree. But I want to have this out.” 

“Well, have it out, then.” Tory threw an acorn 
at him. 

He caught it deftly. “You are English, aren’t 
you?” 

“M-yes. By parentage, perhaps. But other¬ 
wise— moi, je suis citoyenne du monde” 

“Of what world?” asked Brooke bluntly, for¬ 
getting England in the abstract for the moment. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean that in my world—in your aunt’s world, 
which is presumably yours at present—people of 
your age and position don’t usually go about with 
bare legs except at the seaside.” 

Tory looked at him in amazement. . . . What 
an impertinent, presumptuous young man! None 
of Nutkin’s friends had ever dared to speak to her 
like this. Whatever she had chosen to do had been 
admired and applauded by them. No one had ever 
found fault with her in all her seventeen years, 


168 


GOLDEN DISHES 


She certainly had not helped Brooke to mend his 
motor-bicycle and ordered him to take her for a 
run in the Forest for this! . . . She said so with 
considerable vigour. 

Christopher Brooke only laughed. “Look here, 
I wish you wouldn’t call me Brooke,” he said. “It 
isn’t done, you know. Call me Chris, as all my 
real pals do.” 

“How dare you think that I want to be a real 
pal of yours!” cried Tory indignantly. 

“Well, I want to be one of yours,” Brooke 
answered, inwardly rather amazed at his own ease 
of manner with this queer, provoking little girl. He 
did not feel in the least shy with her. He wanted, 
rather, to tease her, play with her, scold her—pet 
her, perhaps, if she were unhappy—he pulled him¬ 
self up with a jerk. What he really felt, most 
closely, most intimately, was that he had known 
her always, that she belonged to him, was, always 
had been, his; a knowledge without any foundation 
whatsoever, but a strange insistent certainty none 
the less. “I have some claim, you know.” 

“What claim can you possibly have?” 

Brooke’s eyelashes blinked rapidly. “Well, 
didn’t I—didn’t I know exactly what sort of room 
you’d like? You told me so yourself this morning. 
Isn’t that a claim?” 

Tory considered the point for a moment, then 
half reluctantly admitted it. 

“That doesn’t give you the right to find fault 
with me, though.” 

“It shows that I understand you, however.” 

“Does it? I wonder! . . . Perhaps a little bit of 
me,” she conceded. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


169 


“A little bit may easily become a good deal more.” 

“Perhaps.” Tory twiddled her bare toes and 
regarded them ingenuously. “What is it that horri¬ 
fies every one so much about my bare legs, I won¬ 
der! First Lady Salmarais, then Damaris and now 
you! Why should bare legs be any more shocking 
than bare arms, for instance? No one minds those, 
daytime or evening now. It’s all a silly conven¬ 
tion.” 

“Probably,” Brooke admitted. “But unfortu¬ 
nately the civilized world is ruled more or less by 
convention and the tyranny of the preconceived 
idea, and we can’t run counter to all that with 
impunity.” 

“Oh, la, la, what desperately long words!” cried 
Tory, jumping suddenly to her feet. “The pre¬ 
conceived idea which rules me at present is that I’m 
frightfully hungry and want my breakfast above 
all things. Come along, Br— Mr. Brooke.” 

“Can’t it be Chris—Pixy?” he asked diffidently. 

To his surprise her brown face flushed with rage. 
She stamped her foot on the moss. She trembled 
with anger. 

“How dare you?” she cried, her words tumbling 
over each other incoherently. “How dare you call 
me that? That’s Nutkin’s name. His only. No 
one else must dare to use it. How dare you take 

such a liberty, you—you-” English failed her. 

She flashed at him the unforgivable epithet of the 
Frenchman—“Cochon! ” 

“I say, I’m—I’m awfully sorry,” Brooke stam¬ 
mered, whelmed in a flood of eager contrition. “I 
didn’t mean to take a liberty. I apologize most 
humbly. It’s only that the name suits you so 



170 


GOLDEN DISHES 


awfully well. It’s—it’s you, somehow. I know, 
of course, that we’ve only known each other a few 
hours, but I can’t believe it. I feel as if I’d known 
you always. It’s absurd, of course, but—but I 
can’t help it. Do forgive me, and I’ll promise never 
to offend in the same way again.” Sincerity, hon¬ 
esty, candour, rang in every awkward stumbling 
phrase. 

Tory melted suddenly, the elemental in her 
touched by the elemental in him. Youth called 
to youth. Unaware, she heard its long hail and 
answered it in comradely fashion, a little awkwardly 
too, as is youth’s way. 

“It’s all right, mon vieux. But that’s Nutkin’s 
name. Never again. You may call me Tory, 
though, if you like—Chris.” 

Brooke’s pulses pounded. He turned abruptly 
to where his cycle stood propped against a grey 
beech-trunk and bent over it. 

“Thanks,” he said, rather gruffly. “We’d better 
be getting back now, I think. Miss Packe will be 
wondering-” 

“Nutkin won’t be wondering about me. He never 
fusses, thank goodness,” said Tory, as she perched 
herself on the pillion. “Now let’s see if we can’t get 
back faster than we came. Fly! . . . Rush!” 

It took the half-hour’s dash through the clear 
Forest air to restore Christopher Brooke to his 
former poise. Yet even as he whirled in through the 
gates of Paradell and up the freshly gravelled avenue 
he was conscious of a vague loss of balance, a faint 
malaise for which he could not quite account. 

Damaris came out on the steps when she heard 
the noisy approach. 



GOLDEN DISHES 171 

“Oh, don’t fuss,” murmured Tory to herself as 
she hopped off her precarious perch. 

But Damaris did not fuss. She only asked: “Had 
you a nice run? I told them not to cook your break¬ 
fast until you arrived.” 

“Eggs and bacon, I hope,” said Tory, impishly. 

“Naturally,” Damaris smiled. “I thought you 
would like to have everything as typically English 
as possible. Your father would anyhow, though 
not perhaps you, you little cosmopolitan.” She laid 
a caressing hand on one of Tory’s plaits as the 
girl passed her on the steps. Tory jerked it away. 

“Don’t do that, please. I hate to have any one 
but Nutkin touch my hair.” 

“Sorry, dear. I didn’t know. . . . What time 
does your father usually breakfast?” 

“Oh, any time. Whenever he’s awake. Some¬ 
times not till eleven or twelve. I’ll take it up to 
him if he’s not down.” 

“Perhaps it would be better.” Damaris followed 
Tory into the dining-room, and sat down again. 

Christopher Brooke had indeed been right in 
his diagnosis of her niece. She was a queer uncer¬ 
tain little creature, full of prickles: difficult to get 
at, impossible to understand. She certainly showed 
no sign of feeling the call of the blood where Dam¬ 
aris was concerned. Rather, she seemed to be 
fenced round with barbed wire: “So far and no 
farther,” each sharp little prong declared. 

Yet Tory seemed to lower her barriers for other 
people. Last night she had chattered to Hubert Sal- 
marais as if she had known him all her life. This 
morning she had gone off with Christopher Brooke 
to the Forest before any one was up. Now she 


172 


GOLDEN DISHES 


talked to him in friendliest fashion, and called him 
“Chris,” as if they had been brought up together. 
Damaris was loth to think that it was she alone who 
was kept at bay, she alone who was not admitted 
to any intimacy; she who loved her, who had 
worked for her and who had longed most of all 
for any least sign of affection. She could not believe 
it possible that the girl was jealous of her, grudged 
her any evidence of Roland’s love. Such thought 
seemed too mean, too petty to be entertained for 
an instant. As Damaris herself was incapable of 
any such feeling she felt ashamed of herself for 
even momentarily attributing it to another. 

Yet all the time she was conscious of a little 
pricking doubt, a tiny creeping chill, as she left 
Tory to dance attendance on her wayward father 
and went with Brooke to inspect the alterations to 
the wing that was being rebuilt for servants’ quar¬ 
ters. At the end of the inspection he turned to her. 

“Let’s go and see the garden now. Have they 
finished repairing the hot-houses yet?” 

“Not quite. They want to get the house done 
first.” 

“Right-o. You’ll be kept busy for some time 
to come between the house and the garden. The 
stables, fortunately, are in excellent repair. Mr. 
Waring was asking me about them last night. He 
talks of hunting this winter.” 

“Oh, does he? . . . He used to hunt long ago.” 

“As regards horses, Sir Hubert Salmarais recom¬ 
mended Ling, but I think Slaynes of Wickenhurst 
is a better man to go to for a reliable mount. Be¬ 
sides, Ling stayed at home. Slaynes served under 



GOLDEN DISHES 173 

“That settles it,” said Damaris. “I shall cer¬ 
tainly advise my brother to go to Slaynes.” 

It did not occur to her for an instant that it was 
for her to call the tune as it was certainly she who 
would have to pay the piper. She only thought of 
saving Roland’s pride, and chid herself for not 
having forestalled his desire. 

She was afraid that she was being rather stupid 
about things. The whiskey last night, for instance. 
It had been so awkward for Roland to offer the 
other men whiskey and then find that none was 
there. He had been quite charming about it though. 

“How could you have known, after all, dear 
thing?” he had said. . . . But he had looked put 
out at first. 

She should have known. She should have found 
out these things. She must not err again. . . . But 
there seemed so much to remember. The cares of 
Martha pressed heavily upon her at that moment. 
If her life had been empty before it certainly was 
full enough now . . . and yet it was half empty 
still, or, at least, not truly satisfying. How was 
that? She chid herself for an ingrate. 

“I expect you are as happy as a queen now,” said 
Brooke’s voice in her ear. 

She started slightly, so far away from the moment 
had been her thoughts. 

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course. . . . It’s wonderful 
to have a family of one’s own again after all these 
years of loneliness. A little bewildering just at 
first, though.” 

“You mustn’t let them bully you.” 

“No. No. Of course not. They wouldn’t do 
such a thing.” 


174 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Oh, wouldn’t they?” Brooke smiled under his 
small clipped moustache. “They’re an unconven¬ 
tional couple, Miss Packe.” 

“Naturally. They have led a queer wandering 
life. They will take some time to settle down.” 

“Do you think they’ll ever settle down?” 

Damaris turned a startled look on him. 

“Of course they will. It has been my brother’s 
dream for years to come home to England.” 

Brooke, with youthful cynicism, thought: “There’s 
nothing in the world so disappointing as dreams 
come true!” But out of consideration for Dam¬ 
aris, for whom he had a sincere regard, he refrained 
from voicing his disturbing opinion. 

“I was so pleased to see how well you and Tory 
got on together,” Damaris continued. 

Brooke smiled again as he thought of the scene 
in the Forest. “She’s a regular little porcupine, 
Miss Packe.” 

Damaris glanced quickly at him, and surprised a 
half tender, half reminiscent, wholly amused look. 

“Oh! ... Do you find her so? . . .1 thought 


“She’s been more used to men than to women. 
That’s why she seems to get on better with them, 
perhaps. She wants some knowing, I fancy. She 
wouldn’t wear her heart on her sleeve for any one 
except her father, I imagine.” Thus Brooke tried 
to qualify his certainties. 

“A Packe trait,” said Damaris, and started, for 
it might have been Aunt Charlotte who spoke— 
then smiled at her own absurdity, for Tory Waring 
had no least drop of Packe blood in her veins. She 
went on in a more assured tone: “Any one who is 



GOLDEN DISHES 175 

worth knowing takes some learning. Roland’s 

child should be well worth knowing.” 

Brooke stopped in front of her, his hands in his 
pockets, a whimsical look in his eyes. 

“Forgive me, Miss Packe, but don’t you think 
it would be better not to look on her only as 
‘Roland’s child,’ and expect to find reflections or 
even glimpses of him in her? Wouldn’t it be wiser 
to look on her as an individual, a stranger, a voyage 
of discovery, if you like? You’ll get on better with 
her if you do, I fancy. I know it’s awful neck on 
my part talking like this, but I’ve a queer sort of 
feeling about that girl, as if—as if I’d known her 
all my life, somehow. I felt it first when I saw 
her picture. I feel it far more strongly now that 
I’ve seen herself.” 

“Do you, Mr. Brooke? How strange!” 

“I wish you’d call me Chris,” said Brooke in a 
low tone. “I’ve wanted to ask you for some time, 
but I hadn’t the nerve.” 

“I shouldn’t have imagined that that was one of 
your failings! . . . I’m afraid I’m not very good 
at calling people by their Christian names. I’ve 

never come close enough-” She stopped 

abruptly. There was only one person to whom 
she had ever come close enough for such dear 
familiarity. 

“Try,” begged Brooke. “Compromise on Chris¬ 
topher, if you like.” 

“Very well, I’ll compromise on Christopher,” she 
conceded with a smile. 

She felt a genuine liking for this big boyish young 
man, and yet she suddenly felt old beside him. His 
vivid certainties, his instant comradeship with Tory, 



176 


GOLDEN DISHES 


his modest but confident explanation of her own 
flesh and blood to her chilled her faintly. She, 
who had loved the unseen child from her birth, who 
had made innumerable little sacrifices for her, was 
calmly bidden to forget the blood-tie on which she 
had based her hopes and to sit in the student’s 
chair, learning, patiently learning the twists and 
turns of a wayward character. . . . 

Well, perhaps Christopher Brooke was right. 
Young people knew everything and she was young 
no longer. Had she ever been really young, she 
wondered. Had not her youth been suddenly 
blotted out by that black cloud of long ago, revived 
for a magic span by Ludlow Tempest, then ruth¬ 
lessly snatched from her again? 

At that moment the current of her thoughts was 
diverted by seeing Tory run along the garden path 
towards them. 

“Nutkin’s getting up at last,” she cried gaily. 
“And as he’s going over to Shotton after dejeuner 
and won’t want me I thought, perhaps, you might 
take me to Bournemouth, Damarais, as you sug¬ 
gested yesterday, and get me some clothes.” 

“About time, too,” said Brooke, with a glance at 
the bare brown legs. 

Tory made a face at him. “No business of yours. 
But Nutkin appears to think I’m grown up. What 
happened to you when you grew up, Damaris?” 

“Well, I let my skirts down and put up my hair, 
but now it seems that one reverses the process. 
One puts one’s skirt up and bobs one’s hair.” 

Tory caught her plaits. “I’m not going to bob 
mine. Nutkin loves it. He often paints it. I’ll 
turn it up if he likes. Then I needn’t let down my 


GOLDEN DISHES 177 

skirts too far, Damaris, so long as I clothe my 
legs?” 

“It’s a morning of compromises,” smiled Dam¬ 
aris, responsive at once to Tory’s new friendliness. 
“Christopher, have you any idea which is the best 
shop in Bournemouth for silk stockings?” 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 



IME smoothed the ragged edges of life 
at Paraded to a fairly normal routine. 
Naturally no precise regularity could 
exist in any household of which Roland 
Waring and Tory were chief members. 
“Routine to me is abhorrent!” Waring declared. 
“The convention of stated meals at stated times has 
always seemed to me one of the most senseless forms 
of tyranny. The convention of going to bed, too 


“But, Roland, dear,” objected Damaris gently, 
“unless you have some sort of routine the maids 
won’t stay.” 

“Let them go then,” cried Waring superbly, with 
his most disarming smile. 

“I daren’t,” returned Damaris. “I don’t know 
where or when I should get others.” 

“What does that matter? Picnicking is great 
fun.” 

“But some one has to cater even for picnics.” 

“Isn’t it usually a case of ‘all hands to the 
pumps’? I can make a salad with any one.” 

“Yes, when some one else has prepared all the 
vegetables,” put in Tory unexpectedly. “I know 
your salads, Nutkin! Caterina’s heart used to sink, 
as well as mine, whenever you said you’d make 
one. We’d better not subject poor Damaris to the 
same ordeal.” 

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind,” said Damaris loyally. 

“With respect, as they say in Italy, you speak 
as a fool, signorina,” said Tory darkly. “Come 
178 












GOLDEN DISHES 


179 


along, Nutkin. I’ve got a packet of sandwiches for 
you and some sugar pears. Don’t expect us till you 
see us, Damaris. We’ll try to be back in time for 
dinner if Nutkin has finished his sketch.” 

“What is he doing this time?” asked Damaris, 
trying to keep her disappointment at the prospect 
of another long, lonely day out of her tone. It 
never occurred to either of them to ask her to go 
with them on any of these expeditions. When first 
she had mooted the idea they vetoed it promptly. 

“My dear, what on earth would you do with 
yourself?” 

“Damaris, you’d be dreadfully bored!” 

She had not suggested going again. It hurt her 
absurdly to see the two look at each other in kindly 
pity for her folly as they did now at her question 
about Waring’s work. 

“He’s doing a series of sketches for a big picture, 
something like what he did at Mergozzo.” 

“The soul of the Forest, dear thing,” Roland 
explained. “You’d never understand it because it’s 
so intensely modern. You’ll probably think it hide- 


“Why should I think it hideous? If you explained 
it to me, perhaps-” 

Waring smiled indulgently. “Who can explain the 
inexplicable? You either know or you don’t know, 
see or don’t see. You cannot grasp the intangible 
or put the evanescent into a prison of words. You 

snatch, you apprehend, you glimpse- There! 

Of course you think I’m talking nonsense!” 

“I do,” answered Damaris frankly. “But I fancy 
that I catch a glimmer of what you mean, all the 
same.” 





180 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“If Hubert Salmarais calls tell him that he will 
find us in Wyllevor Walk near Puck’s Pool.” 

“Are you expecting him to call?” asked Damaris. 

“Well, he comes pretty often, doesn’t he?” War¬ 
ing said. “It takes me back a hundred years. . . . 
Hubert in and out all day, trotting at my heels like 
a mastiff after a fox-terrier, and Lady Salmarais in 
constant ferment lest I should lead her beloved into 
mischief.” 

“Which you generally did! Long ago, at least.” 

“Which I all too often didn’t,” Waring declared 
regretfully. “If only I had been a little more deliber¬ 
ate in wrong-doing in those days it might have 
worked wonders in Hubert’s character. As it 
is-” 

“As it is,” finished Tory, “he promised faithfully 
to take me beetle-hunting and never did. I believe 
Lady Salmarais is even more disapproving of me 
since I took to stockings than she was before. It’s 
as well that she doesn’t see me in this gipsy cos¬ 
tume.” Tory looked down at her holland tunic 
and bare legs and laughed. 

Waring laughed too. “Call that a gipsy cos¬ 
tume?” he mocked. “Why, the Forest gipsies are 
the most conventional of creatures, Pixy. Nothing 
in the world would induce them to go barefoot or 
short-skirted. They cling tenaciously to their own 
conventions, and woe betide the one who disregards 
them.” 

“You’d better come on, Nutkin, before you shat¬ 
ter any more of my illusions,” cried Tory, tucking 
her arm through his. “Good-bye, Damaris, old 
thing. You’ll have a nice quiet afternoon for pay¬ 
ing calls.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


181 


They wandered off, gay, careless, inconsequent, 
just as Damaris had so often pictured them, but, as 
she had never once imagined, without her. She 
watched them go from the steps. 

They did not mean to be unkind, she told her¬ 
self. They were so used to being all in all to each 
other, self-sufficing, self-contained, that the possi¬ 
bility of admitting another to their charmed circle 
never entered their heads. 

But they would admit Hubert Salmarais. They 
would admit Christopher Brooke if he were there. 
It was only she herself whom they deliberately shut 
out. Why? Why? Why? 

Even as she wrung her hands together at the 
thought a patter of feet came to her ears. She 
looked up. Round the bend of the avenue Roland 
was running. She hastened down the steps to meet 
him. 

“Have you forgotten something?” she cried. 

“Yes. You!” he answered. “Put on a sensible 
pair of shoes, snatch some sandwiches from cook 
and come with us. You needn’t come another time 
if you’re too bored.” 

“It’s only my own company that ever bores me!” 
Damaris declared, her face radiating almost to 
beauty. “But I don’t want to delay you. Tory will 
be impatient. Tell me where you’re going and I’ll 
follow.” 

“We’re going down to the other side of Thorny- 
cross Lawn first. Tory says she saw deer there 
the other day. She wants to see them again. We’ll 
look out for you along the track.” 

“Good. I shan’t be long.” Damaris ran off as if 
her feet were winged. 


182 


GOLDEN DISHES 


How unreasonable, how ungrateful she had been! 
It was only consideration for her that had prevented 
them from asking her to join them before. She 
had been stupid to have imagined anything else. 
She did not know that the sight of her rather for¬ 
lorn figure on the steps had touched Roland’s soft 
heart to sudden compunction. 

“Pixy, we’re beasts!” he cried. “I must go back 
for Damaris.” 

“Your blood be on your own head, then,” said 
Tory as she sauntered slowly onwards. “She won’t 
like it a bit.” 

Angry and resentful at the thought of an un¬ 
wanted third being suddenly thrust into the old 
delightful solitude d deux Tory made up her mind 
on the spot that Damaris should not like it. 

Damaris did not, after the first half-hour. In 
truth it took scarcely so long as that to chill her 
happy warmth at the unwonted outing. There 
was a jangling note in their intercourse as they 
sauntered over the moorland ridge which led from 
Thornycross Lawn to the wooded hollow where the 
deer had been seen, or crouched in sheltering thick¬ 
ets to watch for buck and doe that never appeared. 
It was impossible to be gay or care-free in the 
presence of Tory’s hunched shoulders and sullen 
monosyllables. 

Waring fought light-heartedly against the inimical 
atmosphere for a time: then gave up the struggle 
with a shrug. 

“Run away and play by yourself, Pixy, if you 
can’t behave properly,” he said at last, half in jest, 
half in earnest. 

“Bien! I will!” muttered Tory. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


183 


Waring closed the moss-grown gate that opened 
on the woodland drive known as Wyllevor Walk, 
leaving Tory on the road outside. The drive, 
green and vivid, narrowed to a long vista of tall 
cone-laden conifers and wide spreading oaks, then 
curved to the right. Tory leaned her elbow on the 
gate and watched the other two dwindle to mere 
specks before they disappeared, then vaulted over 
the gate and sauntered after them. 

Presently a low-branching oak tempted her, and 
she swung herself on to the nearest bough, then up 
to a higher one, where a clump of oak-ferns showed 
pale against the bronze-green foliage. She sat there 
for a long time brooding on her grievance. 

a Why did he want to drag Damaris with us? We 
were far happier without her. It’s quite enough to 
be nice to her when we’re in the house. She said 
she wanted us to be happy in our own way. . . . 
Well, we’re perfectly happy by ourselves.” 

A big brown butterfly suddenly flitted by, fol¬ 
lowed by another. The airy chase caught her atten¬ 
tion as they pirouetted in the golden sun-warmed 
air. When they vanished she felt as if playmates 
had deserted her. At last, prompted rather by 
hunger than contrition, she dropped from her perch 
and set out after the other two. In places the trees 
almost met overhead, shewing only strips of blue 
sky. Down an opening to the left she caught a 
glimpse of a fallow deer. All was peaceful save 
her own turbulent spirit. 

“I will not share Nutkin with any one,” she cried. 
“Never! Never! Never!” She suddenly felt small 
and lonely, sustained only by the heat of her resent¬ 
ment. 


184 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Some one crackled through the undergrowth near 
her. She started as a voice called: “Why are 
you in such a desperate hurry ?” 

There was a reassuringly familiar ring in the 
tone. 

She stopped and looked round. Sir Hubert Sal- 
marais, hot and red, was forcing his way through 
the bushes towards her. 

“I have just been to Paradell and heard that you 
were going to Wyllevor,” he panted. “I took this 
short cut to try and catch you up. I feared I had 
lost you until I caught sight of you sprinting along 
the Walk. Why this hurry?” 

Tory smiled, forgetting her chagrin. “I’m run¬ 
ning after Nutkin and Damaris, who are on ahead. 
We are having a picnic.” 

“May I join?” He took off his hat and mopped 
his streaming forehead. 

“Yes, if they’ve left anything for us to eat. I 
wish I wasn’t so hungry!” 

“That’s all right. I have plenty of food here. 
Mrs. Carson, our housekeeper, never lets me go out 
into the Forest unprovided.” He indicated a knap¬ 
sack slung across his shoulders. 

“What have you got?” asked Tory, frankly curi¬ 
ous. “Enough for me?” 

“Let’s see.” He drew the knapsack forward and 
opened it. “Several packets. ... I say, there’s 
a beautiful little glade in here. Shall you and I 
have a picnic all by ourselves?” 

“Benissimo!” cried Tory clapping her hands. 
“That will serve two purposes. Save me from dying 
of hunger and punish Nutkin for having been so 
horrid to me!” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


185 


“I can’t believe that he was horrid to you,” de¬ 
clared the loyal Hubert, as he held aside the spring¬ 
ing saplings for her to pass into his magic glade. 

There was quite an illusion of Spring in the sun- 
flecked green space. The beech-boughs interlacing 
overhead kept the young growth beneath pale and 
vivid as in May. Mosses shading from emerald 
almost to white, star-shaped, fern-branched, tufted, 
thickly carpeted the ground. Toadstools sprang in 
gay clusters here and there—orange, scarlet, clear 
white and russet brown—bright little flecks of colour 
like elfin lanterns set for some fairy festival. 

“This is charming,” cried Tory, dropping on to 
a mossy cushion. 

Hubert flung himself heavily on the ground beside 
her. 

“Now do you like England?” he asked. 

“Mon Dieu! You are all mad about England!” 
she declared. “What does it matter whether I 
like England or not?” 

“It matters to me.” 

“Then don’t let it. . . . No, mon vieux, I decline 
to be serious in this fairy dancing-place. Perhaps 
if you are very good and give me a very nice 
dejeuner you will see a dryad dancing here after¬ 
wards.” 

“I am always good, and I can guarantee Mrs. 
Carson’s lunches.” He opened his satchel and drew 
out neat little packets of sandwiches, ham and 
chicken, egg, tomato; slices of darkly rich fruit¬ 
cake, fresh light sponge-cakes, pears, plums, and 
finally a thermos flask full of hot coffee. 

“What a feast!” cried Tory. “I’m so glad that 
I’m picnicking with you!” 


186 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Cupboard love only?” queried Salmarais with a 
heavy half-wistful humour. 

“Mostly,” Tory admitted frankly. “Though I 
must say that I find you at present much more 
congenial than the others!” 

“Do you really? Why, I wonder? For Roland 
is the best company in the world and Damaris Packe 
is a charming young woman. My mother says she 
has the sweetest disposition of any girl she knows.” 

“She would, naturally.” 

“Why naturally?” 

Then it was that Tory hurled her bombshell. 

“Because Lady Salmarais wants you to marry 
her, of course.” 

Sir Hubert flushed a dark and unbecoming red. 
“My mother wants me to marry Damaris Packe?” 
he echoed. 

Tory, revived by sandwiches, began to enjoy her¬ 
self. 

“Yes. Didn’t you know?” 

“How should I know? I—she-” 

“It would be an excellent thing for both of you, 
mon vieux,” Tory continued calmly, stretching out a 
brown hand for a slice of plum-cake. “Damaris 
would make an admirable wife and you’d be an 
awfully nice uncle for me.” 

Salmarais was silent, disturbed by this disintegrat¬ 
ing suggestion. It was long since he had felt the 
faintest urge towards matrimony, any half-forgotten 
impulsion having been caused rather by the desire 
for an heir than for a wife. Certainly the thought 
of marrying Damaris Packe had never entered his 
head. He did not want to marry any one. Of course 
he was old enough to be Tory Waring’s father, yet 



GOLDEN DISHES 187 

the idea of being her uncle was curiously distaste¬ 
ful to him. He did not know why. 

“But I don’t want to be your uncle,” he blurted 
out, almost before he knew that he had spoken. 

Tory looked disappointed. “You are scarcely 
polite, mon vieux! Still, I am the very last person 
in the world to desire to force any one into matri¬ 
mony.” 

She had a quick memory of her own annoyance 
when her dear “Mr. Tempus” had volunteered to 
be an uncle to her. Now Hubert Salmarais was 
equally annoyed when she offered to be a niece to 
him! How droll people were! . . . After all, in 
spite of his occasional tiresomeness, there was only 
one person in the world who was really satisfactory, 
and that was Nutkin! His morning misdemeanour 
paled to insignificance in the light of his contrast 
with all other denizens of the globe. 

“What do you know about matrimony? You’re 
only a child,” said Salmarais. 

Tory looked at him pityingly. “I don’t think I 
was ever a child. In some ways I am older than 
you are, mon vieux.” 

“Why do you call me that? I’m not a veteran.” 

“It’s a term of endearment,” explained Tory toler¬ 
antly, “but I shan’t use it any more if you don’t 
like.” 

“But I think I do like, after all.” 

“Mon Dieu, how contradictious he is!” thought 
Tory. “I must change the conversation. But how? 
...” Aloud she said: “Apropos of age, did you 
know my Grandpapa Waring?” 

Salmarais looked at her questioningly. . . . Was 
she speaking innocently, or was she really trying to 


188 


GOLDEN DISHES 


saddle him with an antiquity beyond his years? 
He could not determine. Like all people of im¬ 
portance he was not used to being laughed at, and 
fortunately for his self-esteem he had no idea of 
Tory’s actual attitude towards him. He answered 
solemnly. 

“No. He died before Roland and his mother 
came back to live at Paraded. He was a Londoner. 
He did not like the country. He said, I believe, that 
the Forest stifled him!” 

Tory thought: “Oh, la, la, that puts poor Grand¬ 
papa Waring beyond the pale at once! And yet he 
must have been amusing or grandmamma would not 
have left her precious Paraded for him. . . . You 
Forest people are very—what you cad conserva¬ 
tive—aren’t you? You stick to old customs. You 
think there is no one like yourselves.” 

“Who says so?” asked Salmarais stiffly. 

Fascinating as Tory was he was not going to let 
her laugh at tho Forest or its people. 

“Nutkin, I think.” 

“Oh, Roland! ...” His brow cleared. “But 
he laughs at everything.” 

“Yes,” crooned Tory. “That’s what makes him 
such a darling.” Her face grew bright with a radi¬ 
ance that only came there at mention of her father 
or contact with him. “There’s no one like Nut- 
kin!” 

“No one,” he agreed; then, on an after-thought, 
“but you!” 

“Oh, I’m not ready like him,” Tory laughed. 
“I’ve got twice as much sense as he has. I don’t 
know what he’d do without me to look after him.” 

“But he’ll have to some day.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


189 


Tory turned a frowning face on him. “Why 
should he? When?” 

“When you marry, of course.” 

“Oh, that! But Fm never going to marry, mon 
vieuxl I made up my mind about that long ago. 
I’m going to stay with Nutkin for ever and ever.” 

Hubert Salmarais was conscious of a queer 
duality of emotion at the cool little announcement: 
a prick of dismay and a sense of relief. He looked 
at the girl for a moment with his heavy unwavering 
stare. 

She was very young of course, and barely up to 
his shoulder in height. He could easily have tucked 
her under one arm and walked away with her, yet 
as she returned his gaze with a careless smile and 
nod he was conscious of an unacknowledged fear: 
a fear as of some strange unknown force. All at 
once he knew that his old friend’s child had the 
power to hurt him if she chose to do so: that her 
strong little brown hands wielded a whip that could 
sting. It was an unpleasant feeling; and as a 
capacity for being hurt by any one in his daily life 
was an absolutely new experience for Hubert Sal¬ 
marais, he had no desire to test its range of possi¬ 
bilities. 

“You know, any one but me bores Nutkin in the 
end,” Tory continued, “and any one but Nutkin 
bores me.” 

“Any one?” queried Salmarais, feeling a flick. 

“I mean for a permanency,” Tory hastened to 
explain. “We both love other people for a while, 

but continually-!” she shook her head, then 

jumped to her feet. “Oh, I do hope Damaris is 
boring him now!” 



190 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Salmarais was conscious of a sudden sympathy 
with Damaris, thus thrust, as he was, outside the 
charmed circle. 

“You shouldn’t speak in that way of your aunt,” 
he began portentously. 

“To my future uncle!” she mocked. “Mille par¬ 
dons! but I forgot!” 

“Forget all that nonsense permanently, please.” 

“But it would be so suitable,” she lamented. 
“Perhaps if you really were my uncle you would 
take me beetle-hunting, as you promised.” 

“I didn’t think you really wanted to come.” 

“But of course I did.” 

“Will you come now?” 

“But yes—after a cigarette.” She took out her 
tortoise-shell case and offered him one. 

“No thanks. If you don’t mind I prefer my 
pipe.” 

“Just as you please. I noticed that you don’t 
like my little yellow Russians.” She lit one. 

“It’s one of the few things about you that I don’t 
like.” 

“Mon Dieu! Are there others? If so, don’t 
tell me of them. As you refuse to be my uncle you 
certainly shall not scold me.” 

“What a child she is!” thought Salmarais, look¬ 
ing indulgently at her sitting cross-legged on the 
moss beside him, thoroughly enjoying her cigarette 
and engrossed for the moment in making a fleeting 
pattern of smoke-rings on the still air. 

Every old-fashioned instinct revolted against her 
smoking, her language, her unconventional outlook 
on life, the while some deeper impulse mocked at 
his disapprovals, crying out that she was herself 


GOLDEN DISHES 191 

and that nothing else mattered. It was a disturb¬ 
ing sensation. 

His disquietude increased when, suddenly fling¬ 
ing her cigarette from her, Tory sprang to her 
feet, and pulling the ribbons from her plaits, loosed 
her hair and began to dance. 

Salmarais was not a devotee of stage-dancing. 
He had seen but little of it; therefore he came fresh 
to a performance that certainly had its own wild 
unstudied grace. It seemed to his rapt untutored 
gaze as if some spirit of the woodland had taken 
shape with the light grace of the silver birch, the 
tossing tawny-gold of the turning bracken, the airy 
swing of the wind-blown sapling, all woven in an 
enchantment of flying steps, waving arms and 
whirling clouds of hair. 

A spell was woven there in that still green space: 
a spell that laid its magic touch upon Hubert Sal¬ 
marais, opening his eyes to wonder and beauty, 
stilling his doubts, quickening his pulses, holding 
him in a tense silence of rigid muscles and caught 
breath. He sighed when at last Tory sank, panting 
and laughing, on the mossy sward beside him. 

“Why do you sigh?” she asked, laying open hands 
on the coolness of the moss. 

“Because—because it was so beautiful,” he 
answered, with a dazed look. 

Her face changed, softened from its elfin roguery. 
She held out a warm hand. “Nutkin might have 
said that.” From her it was an accolade. 

He took the proffered hand and wondered, as 
Tempest had done, at the strength of its grip. 

“That’s your highest praise?” he asked tenta¬ 
tively. 


192 GOLDEN DISHES 

“Naturally.” She laughed and pulled away her 
hand. 

“I am honoured,” said Salmarais gravely. “It 
was beautiful. I have never seen anything like it.” 

“No? But naturally! . . . Where would you, 
mon pauvre?” She sprang to her feet again. “Now 
let us go beetle-hunting. . . . Oh, there’s one pear 
left. I must eat that!” 

Hubert Salmarais lumbered up beside her. “Will 
not your father and Damaris be uneasy?” 

“No. Why should they? They know that I am 
capable of taking care of myself.” 

“But are you?” 

“Of course. And if I weren’t, why, you are here.” 
She smiled up at him as she bit into the pear. 

“They don’t know that.” He looked dubiously at 
her. 

“How persistent you are!” sighed Tory. “You 
are all the same, you men, obstinate as children 
once you take an idea into your foolish heads! I 
had hoped that I was curing you of your conven¬ 
tionality, mon vieux, but I fear my hopes are vain.” 

“No, they’re not, but I don’t want Roland to be 
worried about you.” For an instant Salmarais had 
a queer unbidden vision of the big house at Shotton 
as a background for these dear, lovable, trouble¬ 
some people, with him there to look after them and 
share their charming company and Lady Salmarais 
comfortably ensconced in the snug Dower House of 
Shotton Grange. “It should be both or none,” he 
mused. “One would not come without the other. 
. . . Well, who knows?” He was conscious of a 
pleasantly excited thrill. 

“You are just as tiresome as the rest,” declared 


GOLDEN DISHES 


193 


Tory crossly. “Nutkin never fusses, but I suppose 
you are worrying about your dear Damaris. Come 
along, then. We were to have had our luncheon 
by Puck’s Pool.” She turned away from the en¬ 
chanted glade, then swung round for a last look. 

“I shall come here again,” she said softly. 

“With me?” 

“Certainly not. By myself. Then there will be 
no one to spoil it with fussing.” 

Salmarais regarded her with a hurt look. “Have 
I spoiled it? Have I fussed? You know I haven’t, 
Tory.” 

He was not wont to be so humble, but Tory did 
not know that, all unconscious as she was of her 
amazing conquest. When Waring’s friends had 
made love to her it had been in very different 
fashion. They had been checked, rebuked or 
laughed at, according to their varying personalities. 
All she realized now was that this big stupid Hubert 
Salmarais had included her in his doglike devotion 
to her father, and she felt that if he began to 
analyze all she said and did with a view to being 
hurt or offended by it, he would be even more tire¬ 
some than she had sometimes found him. She tried 
to be tolerant for, after all, he had given her a very 
good lunch and his evident admiration of her danc¬ 
ing had smoothed her ruffled feelings. She checked 
an impatient movement. 

“It would take a great deal to spoil a place like 
this,” she conceded. “And if you did fuss a little 
I suppose it was only to be expected.” 

“Why?” he queried as he bent the saplings back 
once more to let her pass through to the Walk. 

Tory was tired of being questioned, tired of 


194 GOLDEN DISHES 

having to give reasons for her inconsequent utter¬ 
ances. 

“Because elderly people always fuss,” she de¬ 
clared. “They can’t help it, I suppose. Now come 
on and let us find the others.” 

All unwittingly Tory had planted a barb that 
hung and rankled in Hubert Salmarais. To be 
called old was bad enough, but that could be ex¬ 
plained away as a term of endearment. No one 
could ever place the hateful word elderly in such 
a category. 

Elderly! 

It put one once for all beyond the pale of 
real contact with youth. Elderly! If it had even 
been middle-aged it would not have indicated such 
a chasm. 

Salmarais stalked along by Tory’s side in an 
offended silence of which she was quite unconscious. 
She was so used to tramping with Nutkin without 
talking that she lost herself now in her own 
thoughts, which pricked a little and made her for¬ 
get her companion utterly. 

After all, she had been rather a beast to spoil 
poor Damaris’s day. . . . She was quite frank with 
herself about it and used plain language. ... If 
only she hadn’t been such a jealous little fool they 
might all have been together at Puck’s Pool and 
Hubert quite happy with his Damaris about whom 
he had been so coy! . . . His protestations had 
not deceived her in the least. Men were always like 
that. She remembered how one Sunday Petit Pierre 
had inveighed against matrimony as an institution 
of the most boring, and praised the wisdom of 
those who eschewed it, while on the following 


GOLDEN DISHES 


195 


Tuesday he had run into their studio, radiant, to 
tell them that he had married Estelle that morning 
and was off for a honeymoon in Fontainebleau by 
the next train. She smiled at the remembrance! 

. . . What happy days those were! None of these 
tiresome people with their boring expectations and 
silly conventions to worry one! . . . She sighed. 

Salmarais looked down at her with a sudden 
softening. After all, between seventeen and forty 
there is a great gulf fixed: a gulf which only love 
could bridge. Perhaps he had been too hard on the 
dear wild little creature. 

“Don’t sigh like that,” he said gently. “I’m not 
really angry with you.” 

Tory turned an astonished gaze on him. 

“But why should you be angry with me, mon 
vieux? It is I, rather, who should be angry with 
you. But I’m not. I am being angelic, and it is 
as well that you should know it.” 

In the slightly embarrassed silence that followed 
it was a relief to see Waring and Damaris coming 
towards them when they turned the corner. Tory 
ran to meet them waving a friendly hand. “Hubert 
and I were coming to see that you were all right 
before we go beetle-hunting,” she cried. 

She was near enough to see the look of relief on 
Damaris’s face at sight of her, perceptive enough to 
be aware of the anxiety that had robbed her aunt 
of her usual pretty colour. 

“There, my dear!” said Waring, turning to Dam¬ 
aris and slipping his arm through hers. “I told you 
that you needn’t worry about that Pixy-thing. I 
knew she could take care of herself.” 

Damaris hurried forward. “But you must be 


196 


GOLDEN DISHES 


starving, Tory,” she cried, holding out a packet 
of sandwiches. 

Her solicitude perversely annoyed Tory again. 

“Anything but,” she exclaimed. “Hubert shared 
his feast with me, and I danced the Whirling leaves’ 
dance afterwards to reward him.” 

“So that’s why your hair is loose, Pixy.” 

“Is it still loose? I forgot.” She began to screw 
it into tight plaits again. 

“It’s high time it was up,” said Waring dryly. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


no stretch of the imagination could it 
be said that the Warings fitted into 
the life at Paraded. They took part in 
it, but they jutted out of it. They were 
excrescences upon the smoothness of 
its routine. Therefore, they gave all Thornycross 
—which included Thornycross proper, with its vil¬ 
lage green, its diminutive shops and its ancient 
grey church, yew-guarded: Thornycross Hollow, 
with great trees dipping towards its cluster of 
thatched cottages: and Thornycross Lawn, with its 
red-roofed houses and famous beech-woods over¬ 
looking a wide sweep of rough grass and yellowing 
bracken—a never-failing topic of conversation. 

Thornycross, from Shotton Court to the baker’s 
shop, pronounced the Warings “queer”: and to be 
“queer” in Thornycross was the unforgivable sin. 
The pleasant normality of Damaris Packe—“a nice, 
civil-spoken young lady”—was completely forgotten 
in the delightful titillations of disapproval caused 
by Roland Waring’s flat whiskers, sleek hair, old 
green felt hat and brown velveteen coat, and by 
Tory’s bare legs, flying plaits, abbreviated skirts 
and general wildness. They were considered 
foreign as well as queer, and neither term held any 
condonation of the other. 

True, both father and daughter occasionally went 
to church, clad uncomfortably in the garb of con¬ 
vention. True, they dined at Shotton Court and 
Okenden Lodge, Roland in correct evening dress and 
197 










198 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Tory in a becoming frock of tawny rose silk, with her 
plaits demurely curled like shells over her ears: but 
no one got any satisfaction out of either entertain¬ 
ment at the moment. 

Church roused Waring’s worst feelings, he de¬ 
clared, and a.fter the dinner-parties he gave deli¬ 
ciously funny imitations of both Lady Salmarais 
and Major Okenden, at which Damaris had to 
laugh in spite of some faint inner sense of distaste. 

But the fact remained that the newcomers did not 
fit. They were alien to the Forest life, the busy, 
trivial, all-important country routine. They did 
not take the slightest interest in the garden at 
Paradell, except to make preposterous and impos¬ 
sible suggestions, which would have cost hundreds 
of pounds to carry out. 

They did not care a pin about the new tennis- 
court which Damaris proposed to lay out. Even 
Roland’s momentary interest in the stables died out 
as suddenly as it had arisen. 

Yet they did not give very much real trouble, so 
long as they were let go their own way. The cook 
worried over their unpunctuality at meals, the maids 
over Roland’s erratic hours of rising and going to 
bed; but, as maids will, they forgave him because 
he was a man and because he was always charm¬ 
ing to them. They would have given Damaris 
notice for a tenth part of his careless inconsider¬ 
ateness. 

Because of her distracting visitors Damaris could 
not shape her life to the beauty and order she had 
desired. She would have been content with the 
country routine and the occasional pleasant inter¬ 
course with her neighbours, had not Roland and 


GOLDEN DISHES 


199 


Tory flashed in and out of her days erratically, 
disturbing, upsetting that with which they would 
not amalgamate. 

Perhaps they could not, Damaris told herself 
tolerantly. To clip the wings of a wild bird and 
thrust it into a cage is not to make it tame and 
contented at once. But Paradell was not a cage. 
Who could have more freedom than these two whom 
she loved in spite of their oddities? 

Stay! Did she really love Tory, or was she only 
trying to persuade herself that she did so? Frankly 
she faced the question, but could not answer it satis¬ 
factorily. She wanted to love Tory, she was ready 
to love Tory if the girl would only let her. But 
Tory always kept her at bay, except for odd 
moments when they exchanged glances of mutual 
understanding over some troublesomeness of War- 
ing’s—a fleeting rapport, caught on the wing, as 
it were, before it vanished disappointingly. 

But Roland? . . . Here, too, was disillusionment 
of a kind. Roland was charming, delightful as 
ever, but—she was no longer as necessary to him 
as “the little sister” had once been. She had to face 
it, bitter as was the knowledge. Roland no longer 
really wanted her. He was fond of her, no doubt, 
and there was much that she still could do for 
him, but she was not any more a real integral part 
of his life. It was to Tory he turned for sympathy 
and comprehension. It was on Tory he lavished all 
the queer nicknames he had once bestowed on her. 
It was Tory who had his rare bear’s hugs, not she! 

Of course it was all perfectly natural, only to 
be expected. As people grew older they became 
less demonstrative to each other. Nicknames and 


200 


GOLDEN DISHES 


caresses were youth’s prerogative. Eighteen years 
is a long time—nearly nineteen years now since 
she and Roland last lived together at Paradell. 
People change: people must change in nineteen 
years. It was inevitable, she assured herself. 

“But Roland hasn’t changed! In himself, I 
mean,” she broke out suddenly. “He’s exactly the 
same, says, does, thinks the same sort of things. 
And I haven’t changed an iota in my feelings 
towards him. I love him just as much as ever, want 
to be with him, to hear him talk—sense or nonsense, 
I don’t care which! What is it? Is it the inevitable 
sundering of the years, or is it—is it Tory who keeps 
deliberately between us? It is. I feel it is. But 
why, why, why? What have I done to her that 
she should grudge me a share of my own brother’s 
love? Doesn’t she know that his heart is large 
enough for the two of us? Why should she want to 
keep me outside? Yes, that is it. She deliberately 
keeps me outside. I would have opened my life 
to them both, but they don’t want to come in. They 
stay in their own little circle, just looking on, 
amused probably at my futile efforts to enter. They 
don’t want me to come in—after all my hopes!” 

Damaris, sitting late one afternoon on the stone 
bench near the lily-pond, covered her face with 
her hands. A slow tear trickled through her fingers. 
Had it been worth it, after all? . . .It gave her 
a physical pang to think of Ludlow Tempest: of 
that renounced honeymoon in Italy and Spain. . . . 
What had Major Okenden quoted at dinner the 
other evening? Something about golden dishes— 
“golden dishes with nothing between them.” He 
had turned to her with his little cackle and said: 


GOLDEN DISHES 


201 


“But your golden dishes have plenty between them, 
my dear! ” But had they? Had they? Nothing satis¬ 
fying, truly. She was still hungry, for all her altered 
circumstances: still craving for something she had 
not got. She had pictured life at Paradell as full to 
overflowing. It was full enough, in a sense, but 
each crowding incident seemed to bring its own prick 
of disappointment. 

A whistle of three notes—Roland’s whistle— 
pierced her unprofitable musings. 

She started and hastily wiped away all signs of 
tears. The September sun had sunk behind the 
trees. The little garden had the sudden chill of 
falling dew. A faint mist began to rise above the 
gleaming Jily-cups. 

The whistle sounded again, nearer this time. 
“Damaris! Where are you?” 

“Here, Roland. In the lily-garden.” She went 
to meet him. 

A sound of steps on the polished floor of the 
drawing-room and Roland’s black head appeared at 
the window. He held his hand towards her, with 
a look of distaste. 

“I’ve cut my thumb. Can you bind it up? Oh, 
it’s nothing. Only a scratch, but I don’t want to 
get paint into it and I can’t find Pixy.” 

“Why should you want to find her? I used 
always to bind up your scratches long ago.” 

Damaris was on the terrace by his side examining 
the cut which was long and deep. 

“Palette-knife slipped,” he explained. “It’s 
nothing, really. But it’s better to put a rag on it.” 

When she had washed and bound it she asked, 
“Wasn’t Tory with you?” 


202 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Yes. Most of the day, but she said about four 
o’clock that she was going exploring, and I haven’t 
seen her since. I thought she would be here.” 

“No. She hasn’t come back, and it’s seven now.” 

“It will be all right. She’ll turn up presently. 
She always does. Don’t worry about her. I never 
do.” 

“Don’t you?” 

“No. What’s the use?” Waring smiled. 

It was his tendency to take life easily which had 
preserved his youth so marvellously. He strolled 
down the passage that led from the hall to the 
library and opened the door of the unused room. 

It still bore the bleak and rather menacing air of 
the room that is not occupied, with its rolled-up 
carpet, huddled furniture, stacked pictures, un¬ 
opened boxes of books and empty shelves. 

“I say, Damaris, when are you going to get this 
room ready?” Waring asked, looking round. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t had time yet.” 

“It gives an unfinished feeling to the house to 
have one of the principal rooms left like this.” 

“I’m afraid I can’t help that,” Damaris returned. 
“In any case I shouldn’t use it much before the 
winter.” 

“I should. I’d much rather have it than the 
morning-room you’ve given me. This is more a 
man’s room, the other a woman’s. Besides, this 
room has a very useful view of the avenue. You 
can see at a glance who’s coming to the house, and 
know whether to avoid them or not!” 

Damaris was silent for a moment. Too well she 
knew that it was a man’s room rather than a 
woman’s, but it was one man’s room and should be 


GOLDEN DISHES 


203 


no other’s. She wished that Roland were not so 
persistent, not realizing that in each of them ran 
the same streak of obstinacy. “I’m afraid you’ll 
have to do with the other room for the present, 
dear,” she said firmly. 

For no one but Ludlow would she have thwarted 
Roland thus, but while the faintest hope still lin¬ 
gered in her heart that room should be kept for him 
and not surrendered, even temporarily, to any other. 

Roland smoothed back his hair as if he would 
brush away the prick of annoyance that her words 
caused him. It was not like Damaris to be so 
obstinate, so disagreeable. Usually he had only 
to express a wish— 

“It isn’t as if you used the other room much,” 
Damaris went on. “You scarcely ever go there.” 

“I should use this one more,” he said. 

Damaris did not answer. Waring, whose heart 
was set on having the library for his own use, tried 
other tactics. He touched the soft cheek nearest 
him. 

“I hope your riches haven’t spoilt you, little 
sister.” 

“I hope not.” 

“You mustn’t let them, you know.” 

“I’ll do my best.” 

“Women are not really fitted to have power. It 
is apt to make them self-willed, tyrannical.” 

“What effect has it on men?” asked Damaris, a 
faint twinkle in her blue eyes. 

“It doesn’t affect them in the same way. They 
have more balance. More common sense. Power 
generally goes to a woman’s head.” His thoughts 
suddenly flew off on another tangent. Perhaps if he 


204 


GOLDEN DISHES 


changed the subject. . . . “You ought to get mar¬ 
ried, Damaris.” 

“Ought I? Why?” 

“Because marriage is what women were made 
for, my dear. A man’s influence would do you a 
world of good.” 

“In what way?” 

“In every way,” answered Waring airily. 

“I must think about it,” said Damaris. 

“Hubert would make you an excellent husband,” 
Waring suggested. 

“Hubert Salmarais!” Damaris looked quickly at 
him. Then she said in an odd tone: “My dear 
Roland, where are your eyes?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean that poor Hubert Salmarais is over 
head and ears in love with Tory.” 

“Hubert Salmarais!” It was Roland’s turn to 
repeat the name incredulously. He stared at Dam¬ 
aris as if she were suddenly bereft of her senses. “In 
love with my Pixy?” He gave a short, annoyed 
laugh. “My dear Damaris, you must be mad! 
Pixy wouldn’t look at him.” 

“I did not suggest that she would. But you must 
be blind not to see the way he looks at her.” 

“Old Hubert? That stolid mastiff! Nonsense! 
It’s for your beaux yeux he comes here, my dear 
girl.” 

“Les beaux yeux de ma cassette!” quoted Dam¬ 
aris with an unwonted touch of bitterness. “That 
would be Lady Salmarais’s idea rather than poor 
Hubert’s.” 

“But the Pixy-thing’s a child. An unawakened 
baby!” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


205 


“Probably. But you can’t expect her to remain 
so, Roland. She is over seventeen and more de¬ 
veloped in many ways than most girls well on in 
their twenties. Remember her up-bringing. Is 
Hubert Salmarais the only man who has ever fallen 
in love with her?” 

Roland moved uncomfortably. The subject was 
changed now with a vengeance. 

“Women are always on the qui vive for love- 
affairs.” 

“You haven’t answered me, Roland.” 

He shrugged his shoulders petulantly. “Pixy has 
always had men buzzing round her, from her cradle 
upwards. It means nothing.” 

“It will mean something one day. You had better 
be prepared.” 

He swung round and took her by the shoulders, 
shaking her slightly. “Bad, tormenting little sister! 
Is this your revenge for my teasing you about this 
room?” 

“Roland! It was your own red-herring! It’s 
merely an effort to make you open your eyes to 
facts.” 

“To one very distasteful fact, if it’s true,” he 
retorted gloomily, taking his hands off her shoul¬ 
ders and thrusting them in the pockets of his vel¬ 
veteen coat. “You’ve spoilt any pleasure I had in 
old Hubert’s friendship. I shall always regard him 
now with eyes of suspicion as a prospective 
burglar.” 

“He can’t steal Tory against her will,” Damaris 
reminded him. 

His face cleared. “True! And certainly there 
is no tendresse on her side!” He laughed. “To 


206 GOLDEN DISHES 

hear her mimic him! ... I was a fool to be so 
startled.” 

Then, as Damaris remained silent, he rounded on 
her once more: “Come! Out with it! Have you 
any more possible aspirants up your sleeve?” 

“I think that Christopher Brooke cares for her 
too,” admitted Damaris reluctantly. 

“Young Brooke, with his blinking eyelashes? 
She’d never look at him, either.” 

“What do you want for her? A prince?” 

“I don’t want any one at present. She’s far too 
young.” 

“She won’t always be too young.” 

“Horrid pessimist! Why worry about tomorrow? 
Read Omar and learn how to live in today.” 

“I wish-” Damaris got so far when the sound 

of the warning gong boomed towards them from the 
house. She turned to her brother. “Shall we go 
to dinner at the usual time or shall we wait for 
Tory?” 

“Most assuredly we shall go to dinner. Dieu! I 
feel that I could consume the whole fatted calf 
myself this evening.” He slipped his arm through 
hers as they went in through the French window. 
“My day in the Forest has given me an appetite.” 

“You’re not uneasy about Tory, then?” 

“Only with the uneasiness you yourself have 
induced. Otherwise I haven’t a qualm. She’ll turn 
up all right presently. She always does.” 

“Roland, there are gipsies in this part of the 
Forest-” 

“And brigands in Italy and bandits in Spain!” he 
laughed. “It would be a clever gipsy who could 
run away with my hedge-pigling against her will.” 




GOLDEN DISHES 207 

“Oh, very well. If you’re not anxious I suppose 
I needn’t be.” 

“Perish the thought. Away with these unworthy 
tremors. You don’t know the Pixy-thing as I do.” 

“No,” answered Damaris shortly. 

They went to dinner without waiting for Tory; 
Waring’s mind for a moment occupied with the 
peculiarities of women, Damaris with a sub¬ 
conscious quickening of the uneasiness within her. 

“In a previous incarnation I must certainly have 
been a mother hen whose brood of ducklings dis¬ 
tressed her by taking to the water,” she told her¬ 
self. “Perhaps it is as well that I haven’t any 
children of my own. Life would be one long anxiety 
about them.” 

But despite this mental reassurance she was only 
too well aware that the grapes were by no means 
sour and that it was she herself who had thrust 
them out of reach, she herself whose golden dishes 
held neither the seed nor the fruit of life. 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 


pljl^l^AMARIS felt painfully justified in her 
! jiMjlh uneasiness as the twilight thickened to 
ijjjjpj dusk and dusk merged into darkness 
without bringing Tory back to Paraded. 

—-— Waring sat in a long cane chair on the 

terrace smoking cigarette after cigarette with appar¬ 
ent imperturbability. It was Damaris who could 
not rest, who slipped away quietly through the 
drawing-room from time to time and out on the 
steps, to listen for a while, then to run to the bend 
of the avenue, pause and listen again, then run on 
with quickened pulses to the gate itself. She knew 
that Tory would probably laugh at her and call her 
fussy when she returned, but she had to risk that. 
She could not bear to think of a young girl alone 
in the Forest at such an hour, tired, hungry, lost in 
the darkness, trying to find her way back. 

It was after one of these fruitless pilgrimages that 
Waring spoke to her with unusual asperity. 

“Damaris, you are enough to fidget an oyster! 
Mon Dieu , can’t you sit down?” 

“No, I can’t, Roland. . . . And I don’t know 
how you can! Tory would surely have been back 
by this if she hadn’t got lost. The Forest is puzzling. 
She might so easily have gone astray.” 

“She has probably met Hubert Salmarais and 
gone bug-hunting with him. There was some rare 
night-moth he promised to show her.” 

“I’m glad you can think so,” cried Damaris, but 
gladness was the last emotion to be read in her tone. 
“Hadn’t we better send over to Shotton?” 

208 








GOLDEN DISHES 


209 


“Nonsense. We don’t want to set Mother Sal- 
marais’s tongue wagging. Hubert said something 
about coming here this evening. He hasn’t turned 
up. Verb, sap.” 

His nonchalance made Damaris want to scream. 
Instead, she controlled herself with difficulty as she 
answered with a forced quietude: “Something else 
may have detained him. I’ll just go as far as the 
avenue gate once more. Then ...” 

She would have given a good deal to have Roland 
offer to accompany her. The warmth of a human 
touch, the reassurance of human contact would have 
soothed the foundless, yet terrible anxieties that 
beset her. But Roland did not stir, though one half 
of his nature urged him to jump up and comfort her 
alarms. The other half surged with a fierce jealous 
anger that Damaris should dare to be uneasy about 
his Pixy: that she should take it upon herself to 
urge him to action. If any one ought to be anxious 
surely it were he, and when he wasn’t—genuinely 
wasn’t—Damaris had no right to go on as if he were 
careless and indifferent to the fate of his best- 
beloved. . . . Let her go and fuss and worry if 
she liked! Women were the most imbecile creatures 
le bon Dieu ever created! Of that there was not the 
slightest doubt. . . . 

He puffed angrily at his cigarette to find that it 
had gone out. He flung it across the terrace and 
heaved himself sulkily from his chair. 

Silly old Damaris! . . . Perhaps he’d better go 
after her. She was a goose, of course, but still . . . 
And the Pixy hadn’t always been particularly nice 
to her either, bad little thing! . . . The maternal 
instinct run to seed, he supposed. If Damaris had 


210 


GOLDEN DISHES 


had a flock of her own. . . . Where on earth had 
she got to now? . . . Oh, there she was! That was 
the glimmer of her grey dress in the dark tunnel of 
the avenue! 

Waring quickened his steps as a sound of voices 
came to his ears, swift relief in his heart, a mocking 
smile twisting his mobile lips. 

“Ah, you’ve found the truant,” he cried, running 
down the steps like a boy. 

“No, I haven’t,” came Damaris’s voice through 
the darkness. “This is Hubert Salmarais. He 
hasn’t seen Tory today.” 

“Then why the devil are we wasting time here?” 
cried Waring unreasonably, fear leaping upon him 
from where it had been ambushed all the evening, 
tearing him, rending him with a savage suddenness. 
“Damaris, tell your men to bring lanterns. . . . 
Hubert, we thought she might have been with you.” 

“I wish to God she had been,” said Salmarais 
solemnly. “You should have sent to Shotton-” 

“Don’t waste time in telling us what we should 
have done. Let us do something now.” Waring 
grew suddenly frantic. 

“I’ll go back to Shotton and round up some of 
the keepers. They know every inch of the Forest 
about here. There’s a full moon coming up pres¬ 
ently. That ought to help us. Where did you 
last see her?” Authority rang in Salmarais’s tone. 
He showed an unexpectedly different side from his 
usual social aspect. 

“I was painting by Puck’s Pool when she slipped 
away, saying she was going to explore.” 

“Then she may have got lost in Beverley En¬ 
closure. Go back and collect your men. Bring 



GOLDEN DISHES 


211 


brandy and a warm wrap in case she’s cold. We’ll 
meet by the ‘Rising Sun’ at Thornycross Lawn.” 

“May I come too?” asked Damaris, shivering. 

“Certainly not. Go back to the house.” 

Salmarais turned on his heel and went quickly 
down the avenue. Roland had disappeared into the 
house, whither Damaris followed him. 

Although her anxieties had quickened with 
Roland’s sudden fear she felt a sense of relief that 
something was really being done at last. Salmarais’s 
quiet common sense and his assumption that Tory 
was only lost allayed her worst apprehensions. 

“She may catch a bad cold from her night out,” 
he had reassured her. “But that’s probably all.” 

It was well for her peace of mind that she could 
not read his real thoughts: his sudden sick fear lest 
the girl might have encountered an angry deer. . . . 
The beasts were always troublesome at this time of 
year. Confound the fools, why hadn’t they started 
the search immediately after dinner? They had lost 
much valuable time. 

He thrust a couple of large silk handkerchiefs and 
a brandy flask into his pocket before he and his men 
started out to meet the Paradell party at the “Rising 
Sun”: a group of dark figures on the light road, 
whose shadows lay before them, black and waver¬ 
ing in the mellow light of the moon, as they turned 
the white and orange rays of electric torch and 
lantern to greet the approaching searchers. 

It was Salmarais who took command, who gave 
quick incisive orders before they separated, who 
thrust his hand through the shaking arm of Roland 
Waring, now dumb with his sudden frantic fear. 

“You come with me, Roly,” he said, using 


212 


GOLDEN DISHES 


the boyish nickname for the first time for many 
years. “You don’t know the Forest as I do. There’s 
no use in your getting lost too.” 

“Hubert, I’d forgotten that this was September 

... the deer. ... Do you think-?” His 

throat swelled. He could not articulate further. 

“There aren’t many deer about here,” answered 
Salmarais, thinking sickly of the herd he had seen 
in the Beverley Enclosure only two days ago. “Did 
she go in the Beverley direction, do you know?” 

“I don’t. I wasn’t looking. I was painting when 
she slipped away. She just called out that she was 
going exploring. She often does. She ...” 

“Oh, she’s all right. Only it’s the deuce to find 
your way in these tangles of woods. I often get lost 
myself.” 

“Yes.” 

“Roly, you should have sent over to Shotton long 
ago, especially if you thought she was with me.” 

“Yes.” 

“You didn’t mind her being with me? You knew 
she’d be safe?” 

“Yes.” 

“If I’d had her she certainly would have been 
safe. . . . Roly . . . long ago when we were chil¬ 
dren we used to say ‘Findings are keepings.’ ” 

“We’re not children now.” 

“Then it isn’t so still?” 

“Damn you, what do you mean?” 

“If I find Tory-” The pause was eloquent. 

“Find her first,” snapped Waring. “I don’t think 
I like it when the dumb speak. You are too loqua¬ 
cious tonight, mon cher” 

Salmarais gave a queer sheepish laugh. He was 




GOLDEN DISHES 


213 


not in the least hurt by his friend’s sharpness. He 
knew by the measure of his own anxiety just how 
Roland was feeling and there was no room in his 
heart for any petty personal resentment. 

Through the long hours of the night the search¬ 
ers beat through the heart of the Forest, but with¬ 
out result. 

Taking Puck’s Pool as a centre, they worked 
outward for miles in various directions, shouting, 
flashing lights, exploring undergrowth and thicket, 
but to no avail. 

They could find neither trace nor tidings of the 
missing girl, search as they would. 

As the darkness of night thinned to a misty grey 
dawn they met again by Puck’s Pool, a band of 
tired, uneasy men. 

“Could young miss have taken up with the gipsies 
for a bit of a lark, like?” suggested Troke, the head 
keeper. 

“Quite possibly,” Waring answered. “She has 
always longed to go in a caravan, but-” 

“There’s one thing certain, Roland. If she was 
anywhere in these near woods we’d have found her 
by this time . . . dead or alive,” Salmarais thought 
to himself though he did not say so. “It’s quite 
possible that Miss Waring has strayed farther afield 
and that she may be sheltering for the night either 
with the gipsies or in one of the neighbouring vil¬ 
lages. I should suggest that we go home now for 
some breakfast and take up the search again after¬ 
wards. Perhaps it would be as well to communicate 
with the County Police. They could telephone 
to the various villages for news. Then, if we have 
no word of her-” 




214 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Perhaps she’s back at Paradell by this,” sug¬ 
gested Waring eagerly. 

“More than likely,” muttered Troke to his mate. 
“That one is as wild as a hawk. No knowing what 
she’d be up to.” 

They trudged homeward in silence. 

“You’ll come back with me, Hubert,” said War¬ 
ing eagerly. “Send a message to your mother.” 

“All right.” 

“Shall I come to Paradell with you, sir, to see if 
there’s any news of the young lady?” asked Troke. 

“You might as well.” They tramped along, dumb 
for a while. 

“How she’ll laugh at us when we find her!” said 
Waring at length with an attempt at gaiety. 
“There’s nothing that could have happened to her, 
really.” 

“Of course not.” 

“There are no really deep pools in the Forest?” 

“Not about here.” 

“And we saw no deer.” 

“Not even a horn,” corroborated Salmarais, self- 
controlled even while jarred by the other’s per¬ 
sistence. 

Now that it was Waring who grew loquacious he 
longed to shut him up. He didn’t want him to talk. 
It seemed to him as if every one had said the same 
foolish things over and over again for about a 
hundred times. His pulses quickened as they turned 
in at last through the open gateway of Paradell, 
wondering what news they would hear. 

But no reassurance awaited them there. The 
house bore that slightly dishevelled aspect which 
houses are wont to wear after a night’s vigil. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


215 


Damaris, wrapped in a loose woollen coat, ran 
down the steps to meet them, pale and anxious, 
dark shadows under her questioning eyes. 

“Well?” she cried, before she saw that the truant 
was not with them. 

“No sign of the monkey,” said Waring, as lightly 
as he could. “She’s probably having a night out 
with the gipsies, as she’s often longed to do.” 

“I should think that one night would be quite 
sufficient to cure her of that desire,” put in Sal- 
marais. 

“Beg pardon, Sir Hubert, but I’ve just remem¬ 
bered that most of the gipsies must have gone off 
to the hop-gardens t’other side o’ Winchester by 
this,” said Troke. 

Salmarais made an inarticulate sound. 

“Probably. You’d better cut home and get some 
breakfast now, Troke. Tell her ladyship where I 
am and say that she’s not to expect me for the 
present. Be back here as soon as you can.” 

“Yes, Sir Hubert.” Troke touched his cap and 
went away, wondering if “that wild one had really 
caught a hold of Sir Hubert?” 


CHAPTER TWENTY 


THED and refreshed after the asperi¬ 
ties of the night, the two men and 
Damaris had almost finished a perfunc¬ 
tory breakfast when the sound of an 
approaching motor-engine and the cheer¬ 
ful tooting of a horn assailed their ears. 

“Can it be Tory?” cried Damaris, flinging down 
her napkin and rushing to the window. “No. It’s 
only Christopher Brooke on his motor-cycle. But 
perhaps he brings news.” 

She ran out of the room followed by the others. 
The hall door stood hospitably open. Christopher 
Brooke looked up at her with a cheery grin from the 
bottom of the steps. 

“Em on my way to a job at Ashley,” he said. 
“And I thought I might as well look in here first.” 
He took the steps two at a time and held out his 
hand. 

It was curious, Damaris thought, how often Para- 
dell seemed to lie on Brooke’s way to the most 
unlikely places. He had even once looked in on 
the way to the Isle of Wight—or the Island, as 
local folk called it, as if there were but one island 
and one Forest in their geography. 

“Then you haven’t brought us news of Tory?” 

“News of Tory?” The brightness faded from 
his face as if it had suddenly been wiped off with 
a sponge. “What’s happened? How could I bring 
you news.of her?” 

“She’s lost,” said Damaris quickly. “No one 
here has seen her since four o’clock yesterday.” 

2KS 







GOLDEN DISHES 


217 


“Since four o’clock-? My God! And you’re 

all here—doing nothing?” Impetuously he rushed 
back to his motor-cycle. 

“Stop!” cried Waring. “You’re over-impulsive, 
young man. We’ve been out all night looking for 
the monkey, and feel now that she must have taken 
shelter in some farmhouse or cottage. We’re start¬ 
ing off again immediately. You can come too if 
you like.” 

“I should rather think-!” Brooke’s words 

stumbled. “But is there nothing I can do first?” 

“Shall we send him to round up the local police¬ 
man, Hubert, or do you think it’s the slightest use? 
I confess that I have the most profound distrust of 
your village Dogberry.” 

Salmarais eyed the younger man heavily. In his 
leathern coat and cap Brooke looked much more 
the typical knight-errant than he who had kept 
anxious vigil all night. He felt a sudden resent¬ 
ment at the thought of Brooke’s joining the search. 

“Findings are keepings!” The absurd childish 
tag ran in his mind. . . . “Findings are keepings” 

He hated the idea of Christopher Brooke finding 
his wild rose, his elf, his dancing dryad! Poetic 
similes for the wayward Tory welled within him: 
similes at which she herself would have been the 
first to jeer, had he only known. 

Outwardly his “mastiff calm,” as Waring called 
it, remained unmoved. 

“I don’t think we ought to leave anything un¬ 
done,” he began. “Even a village Dogberry may be 
able to set other wheels in motion.” 

As he spoke, with a theatrical appropriateness, 
the sound of approaching wheels suddenly became 




218 


GOLDEN DISHES 


audible. With the mechanical action of automata 
the four heads turned sharply to listen. 

“Perhaps it’s some one with news,” breathed 
Damaris, squeezing her hands together nervously. 

Crunch! Crunch! . . . Plop-plop. Plop-plop! 

The slow trot of a horse punctuated the grinding 
sound. 

They waited breathlessly until a high, old-fash¬ 
ioned dog-cart drawn by a clumsy white horse 
swung round the bend of the avenue. 

A dark man in a grey felt hat was driving. By 
his side sat Tory wrapped in a man’s tweed coat. 
When she saw the watchers on the steps she waved 
an excited greeting and broke into radiant smiles. 

At sight of her, so apparently unconcerned, so 
gay, so altogether normal, the fears and tremors of 
the night seemed to fade away like some pale 
miasma from the deeps of horror. Damaris felt a 
swift revulsion of anger at the girl’s careless self- 
possession. ... It was nothing to her what they 
had all been through. Nothing . . . 

But who was that beside her? . . . Damaris’s 
heart stood still for an instant. Her eyes dimmed. 
She rubbed an impatient hand across them to clear 
her vision before she looked again. 

No. Yes. The impossible had really happened. 
The man who brought Tory back to them was no 
other than Ludlow Tempest! 

Damaris stood there as if frozen to the steps, 
incapable of movement or of speech. 

Hubert Salmarais, just behind her, thrust his 
hands into his pockets and muttered stupidly: 

“Findings are keepings! . . . But I’ll be hanged 
if they are this time!” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


219 


“My hat! It’s Ludlow Tempest!” exclaimed 
Brooke. “Where on earth did he spring from?” 

A babel of voices floated up to Damaris where 
she stood. Phrases beat upon her consciousness 
for admission. Tory jumped down from the dog¬ 
cart. 

“Hallo, Nutkin, here’s your bad penny back 
again! . . .You weren’t really uneasy?” 

“But I was. Damnably! Wicked pigling! Mon 
Dieu, it’s Tempus!” 

“Of course it’s Tempus,” cried Tory happily. 
“Who else would have found me so opportunely?” 

“We all looked for you, Pixy. We’ve been 
searching all night,” said Waring reproachfully. 

“Darlingest!” Tory was rubbing her cheek 
against her father’s and speaking in a crooning 
voice. “I’m frightfully sorry. But you should have 
known it was all right. You really should.” 

A flood of explanation followed while Waring 
wrung Tempest’s hand and told him that his clothes 
were more English than ever and quite unsuited to 
such a god from the machine! 

“Lost my way on the moor near Picket Post. 
. . . Strayed into Mr. Tempus’s camp by chance 
about midnight. . . . Starving? Of course! . . . 
He gave me food and his tent . . . routed up the 
old farmer before cock-crow . . . and here we 
are!” 

Damaris wondered if it were all really happening 
or if she were only dreaming. How was it that 
the Warings and Ludlow seemed to know each other 
so well? Where had they met? How was it that 
she had never heard of the friendship? . . . Was 
it realty her Ludlow Tempest after all? She looked 


220 


GOLDEN DISHES 


at him again and met his eyes, as Waring called: 
“Damaris! Where’s Damaris? Come and meet 
our squire of dames, our Very gentil parfit knight’ 
Mr. Tempus—hanged if I even know your Chris¬ 
tian name, mon gar l” 

“But Mr. Tempus knows Damaris already. He 
told me so as we came along,” cried Tory. “Isn’t it 
funny?” 

With an effort Damaris pulled her scattered senses 
together and came to life again. The moment she 
had so often longed for (but pictured so differently) 
had come. It must be faced no matter how difficult 
it was. 

Beside the glowing vigour of Tory, on whom her 
night’s adventure had left no apparent trace, Dam¬ 
aris felt old, chilled and quenched as she went down 
the steps with outstretched hand. She heard her¬ 
self talking commonplaces in a high strained voice 
that did not seem to belong to herself, somehow. 

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Tempest is an old friend of 
mine. He’s a cousin of your godmother, Mrs. 
Blaikie, Christopher.” She turned to Brooke, who 
nodded and said that they had met during the war. 
“His name is Ludlow, Roland, and it’s a name you 
certainly ought to know, for it’s very familiar in 
the journalistic world. Probably you know it, 
Hubert.” She turned now to Salmarais, who stood 
watchfully behind her on the steps. “In the excite¬ 
ment of the moment I don’t think any one has intro¬ 
duced you to each other—Mr. Tempest, Sir Hubert 
Salmarais, another old friend of mine, Ludlow. 
What an extraordinary meeting! ... I haven’t 
yet fathomed how and when you met my brother 
and Tory.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


221 


She gave an excited little laugh and put one hand 
involuntarily to a now burning cheek, wondering 
wildly what Ludlow was thinking of, wishing with 
almost the fervour of a prayer that he hadn’t seen 
her like this, with her hair disordered, her eyes heavy 
from her vigil, wrapped in the old grey woollen coat 
which she had felt too cold to discard. The scene 
was stupidly staged for so dramatic a meeting; 
stupidly played, too. 

Tempest, thinner, more sunburnt than she had 
ever remembered him, jaw a trifle harder, mouth a 
shade more cynical, was thinking how cool, how self- 
possessed she seemed: a new, strange Damaris. 

“She’s very much the lady of the Manor,” he 
thought, chilling from the warmth of his earlier 
morning impulses. “Very much the gracious hostess, 
with her Huberts and her Christophers and her 
Ludlows! . . . Damn it, I won’t be one of a herd! 

. . . This warm, impulsive child is worth ten of 
her.” 

The warm, impulsive child, bubbling with laugh¬ 
ter, was now recounting the romantic episode of 
their original meeting, omitting through sheer igno¬ 
rance of it, that first naiad-glimpse of her water- 
play in the lake which was one of Tempest’s most 
cherished memories. She ended with: 

“He used almost to live at the Villino Gobbo until 
we ran away. Didn’t you, Mr. Tempus?” 

Tempest, with a swift sense of relief, smiled into 
the impish face turned up to his. “Aha, maleducata! 
We haven’t had that out yet. Do you realize that 
for months past there’s been a great big rod in 
pickle for the Signorina Vittoria?” 

Tory laughed and clapped her hands. “Ah, how 


222 


GOLDEN DISHES 


delicious it is to hear that again! It takes me back 
to the adorable Mergozzo! I wonder if the Villino 
Gobbo missed us?” 

“It did, desperately,” Tempest assured her. “It 
squinted at me when I went there and made horrible 
mocking faces. It would have put out its tongue at 
me if it could!” 

“Oh, la, la!” cried Tory. “How glad I am that 
I got lost last night! Otherwise we might have 
missed you!” 

A sudden silence fell at her words as an instant 
consciousness of their hours of gnawing anxiety on 
her behalf came to at least two of her hearers. Joy 
at the moment had wiped out Waring’s qualms. 
Salmarais moved forward. 

“As you have been so happily found again,” he 
said stiffly, “I think that I had better be getting 
back to Shotton.” 

“And I must be pushing on to Ashley,” Brooke 
put in. “Have you seen Mrs. Blaikie lately, 
Tempest?” 

“No, not since I got back to Englatid,” Tem¬ 
pest flushed under his tan at the recollection of 
his last communication from his cousin. 

The locusts had now settled comfortably upon 
their green oasis and he, for one, had not the least 
desire to dispossess them. Damaris seemed quite 
happy in the midst of her new circle. No doubt, 
this Sir Hubert Salmarais, this dear old friend- 

“I, too, must be getting back to my encampment. 
Where is the trap?” He looked round. 

“I sent the boy to the yard to rest the horse and 
give it a feed before he started back and to get 
something to eat for himself,” said Damaris quietly. 



GOLDEN DISHES 


223 


“Something to eat!” cried Waring. “What a 
brain-wave! You’re not going to budge, Tempest, 
now that we’ve got you. Nor you two stout fellows 
either. Come back to the house and have some 
breakfast. You must all be starving. I know I 
am. I ate scarcely anything just now, thanks to 
this careless hedge-pigling of mine.” He beat 
Tory’s cheek with the end of her plait. “You must 
stay here for a bit with us, Tempus—mustn’t he, 
Damaris?” 

Perhaps the most difficult thing that Damaris 
Packe had ever done in her life was to turn to 
Tempest and quietly second her brother’s invitation. 
The moment before she had not known how to bear 
the idea of his going out of her life again, even 
momentarily, and now she had to curb an emotion 
that had her by the throat, choking speech, and find 
ordinary words of commonplace hospitality. 

Tempest, having no least idea of the restraint she 
was putting upon herself, nor the turmoil that raged 
beneath her apparent calm, felt sore at her poise, 
her cold aloofness. 

“Oh, well, if she doesn’t mind, I needn’t,” he 
thought resentfully. “It would be refreshing to 
see something of the Warings again. Perhaps the 
Signor Varingo and the Signorina Vittoria aren’t 
really dead after all!” 

Aloud he answered conventionally: “Thanks. It’s 
awfully good of you.” 

“Not at all,” Damaris managed to murmur as 
she turned towards the house. 

It was a relief to get away from them all into 
the quiet of the hall, even though followed by 
Roland’s shouted instructions. 


224 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Tell them to get a room ready for Tempest at 
once, Damaris, and give cook warning that there are 
four starving men on the premises. We must cele¬ 
brate the return of the prodigal with the not too 
fatted ham and the gold-brown egg of convention. 
I feel I could do justice to that tongue now-” 

“Nutkin, I refuse to allow you to eat any more 
tongue. You’ve got plenty of your own.” Tory 
snapped her fingers at him. “All I want to do now 
is to dance the can-can. Hou! Hi! Hola!” 

With an answering whoop Waring bounded in 
front of his daughter, and the two began the wild 
whirling dance which they called the can-can, though 
it bore no resemblance whatever to that celebrated 
measure. 

Salmarais was conscious of that acute discomfort 
which most Englishmen felt at any public disregard 
of convention. Brooke sat on the steps and laughed 
and applauded, while Tempest felt the oddest sense 
of having come home again. 

Damaris, passing by the dining-room window, 
glanced out and saw the little scene with a sudden 
pang. Once more it was only she who stood out¬ 
side the magic circle. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 


T)LOW at Paradell! . . . Another 
dream come true! Damaris, having 
given her orders for the day and seen 
to the disposal of her guests, had bathed 
at her leisure and now lay wrapped in 
a quilted silk dressing-gown, blue as her eyes, on 
the couch in the window in her bedroom, hoping 
for an hour or two of rest before she need get ready 
for luncheon. 

She felt weary after her anxious vigil of the night. 
It was pleasant to rest there in the warm September 
sunshine: to glance when she felt sufficiently ener¬ 
getic to open her eyes, at the green stretches of 
lawn beyond the windows, the yellowing bracken, 
the noble beeches, still dark with their summer 
verdure, the first flame of a turning maple against 
the deep masses of the woods beyond. 

She was too tired to think, too tired to wonder 
about the curious situation which had suddenly, 
as it were, created itself. Only the salient facts 
stood out. 

Tory was safe. Ludlow Tempest was at Paradell. 
That was all that mattered for the moment. Her 
“golden dishes” would have something within them 
at last. She need not go hungry any more. 

Lapped in a warm languor that was gradually 
merging into sleep, a sound of voices first stole 
upon her ears, then insistently penetrated her con¬ 
sciousness: the voices of Tory and Christopher 
Brooke, clear with the careless indifference of youth. 

Damaris felt too lazy to get up and shut the 
225 












226 GOLDEN DISHES 

window, too languid to rise and warn them of her 
presence. 

“After all, they must know that I am here,” she 
mused. “And if they had anything private to 
say to each other they wouldn’t shout it on the steps 
like that. I’ll try not to listen, though.” 

True, any one in hall or dining-room could have 
heard the penetrating discourse of the two young 
people, who were so intent upon their conversation 
that they were quite indifferent to the possibility 
of eavesdroppers, voluntary or otherwise. 

“It isn’t done, you know,” Brooke was saying. 
“You are quite old enough to know better.” 

“Sweet seventeen?” retorted Tory. 

“Seventeen is a responsible age nowadays. It is 
high time that you began to think of some one 
besides yourself.” 

“I do. I think of Nutkin. I think more of him 
than of any one in the world.” 

“You didn’t show much consideration for him by 
staying out all night.” 

“What else could I do? I got lost.” 

“When you found Tempest, or he found you— 
I’m not quite clear which—you could have knocked 
up the farmer then and got that trap to drive home 

in. I wonder at Tempest-” 

# “You needn’t. He wanted to, but I wouldn’t let 
him. I refused to budge. I was tired out. I 
couldn’t have gone another step.” 

“I’m glad to hear he had the decency-” 

“I won’t allow you to disparage my dear Mr. 
Tempus.” 

“Why do you call him that idiotic name? You’re 
not a baby.” 




GOLDEN DISHES 


227 


“That’s a fact you’re rather fond of rubbing in,” 
retorted Tory angrily. 

“It can’t be rubbed in too often if it helps to 
prevent you from behaving like one,” said Brooke 
coolly. 

Tory gasped. Never had any one dared to scold 
her as this audacious young man was doing. 

“Well, really! ...” 

“You were horrid to Miss Packe and most un¬ 
grateful to poor old Salmarais,” Brooke went on 
with a sudden outburst of generosity. 

“What business is it of yours? I didn’t give you 
a sleepless night.” 

“No. But that’s no reason why you should be so 
rotten to those to whom you did,” Brooke returned. 
“Look here, if you’ll take a friend’s advice-” 

“A friend’s?” With bitter emphasis. 

“Yes, a friend’s,” he answered calmly. “You’ll 
try to remember that there are other people in the 
world besides yourself. It’s high time you sat up 
and took notice, my girl. There are lots of other 
people worth consideration, even in your little 
world.” 

“My little world! Moi, citoyenne du monde?” 
gasped Tory. 

Brooke nodded, his heart-beats quickened for all 
his outward coolness. “Yes. Citoyenne of a ridicu¬ 
lous little world of two. It won’t do, you know. 
You’ll pay for it in the long run. If you live among 
human beings you’ve got to be human too. There 
are rules of conduct which one can’t break with 
impunity.” 

“I didn’t realize that you were a prig as well as a 
prude,” said Tory pityingly, choosing the accusa- 



228 GOLDEN DISHES 

tion which up-to-date youth thought would sting 
most. 

She had the satisfaction of seeing him redden as 
he countered her thrust with a query. 

“I suppose it has never occurred to you that any 
one could possibly know better on any subject than 
you do?” 

“Never. And it certainly has never occurred to 
me that I could stand quietly here and be lectured 
by an impertinent stranger. I shan’t do it any 
longer. Adieu, Mr. Brooke.” 

“Au revoir, Tory, my dear.” 

Damaris heard a quick movement as Tory dis¬ 
appeared into the house: then a low whistle from 
Christopher Brooke and a rueful: 

“I wonder if I’ve put the lid on it?” 

A stir of departure and the snorting of the motor- 
engine gradually lessening as it dashed down the 
avenue. Then silence. 

“Poor Tory! What a scolding!” Damaris said 
to herself with a smile. “It ought to do her a world 
of good, though. . . . But how plucky of Chris¬ 
topher! I wonder how he dared! He doesn’t mind 
her prickles, apparently. He has some protective 
armour against them. ... I haven’t. I wonder 
why. Yet, he loves her, I am almost sure, and I 

-? Do I? . . . But isn’t it only through our 

love we can be hurt? . . . Surely. . . . What a 
puzzle life is! Why are things so complex? . . . 
If only. ... If only. ...” 

Her thoughts were just trailing off to sleep again 
when a renewed murmur of voices caught her ear: 
Tory’s again and a well-known deeper one which 
roused her with a start and set her blood pounding. 



GOLDEN DISHES 


229 


“Yes, it is quite a nice old place,” Tory was say¬ 
ing. “Sleepy Hollow, Nutkin calls it. Of course 
the garden is still rather a wilderness—not like the 
Villino Gobbo wilderness, though. I miss the 
cypresses. Do you remember the sentinel ones near 
the lake?” 

“Of course I do. They were still on guard the 
day I went over there and found you flown.” 

“Did you mind?” came eagerly from Tory. 

“Of course I minded,” Tempest answered. “It 
seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of my world 
all of a sudden.” 

“Ah! . . .” Tory made a crooning sound of 
delight. “Let’s go to the water-garden. It’s the 
place I like best here. You must tell me all about 
that day. We’ll go through the drawing-room.” 

“Good.” 

The voices receded suddenly. Damaris found 
herself sitting up on her couch with tightly clenched 
hands and burning cheeks, sleep irrevocably fled. 

Tory! . . . Tory had interfered again. . . . 
She was showing him her place, her drawing-room, 
her lily-pond! She was taking all her foolish dreams 
in her strong little hands and pulling them to pieces, 
one by one. 

Golden dishes, indeed! Tory was clapping them 
so tightly together that nothing could possibly get 
in between them. . . . What had her hopes been? 

“Embroidered lies! Nothing between two 
dishes!” Yes, that was it. What a fool! What 
a hopeless, absolute, utter fool she had been! 
What was Aunt Charlotte’s money worth, after all? 
What had it really brought her? 

She tried to reckon coolly. 


230 GOLDEN DISHES 

She had rescued Roland and Tory from a life of 
poverty. 

True, but it sometimes seemed as if they had 
preferred that life of poverty, with all its gay com¬ 
pensations. She had opened her hands, heart and 
purse to them, but it was only of the latter that 
they had taken as freely as she would have given. 
Tory almost disliked her, she thought. Roland did 
not really want her. As for Hubert Salmarais and 
Christopher Brooke, Tory had bewitched them both. 

. . . While Ludlow. . . . Ludlow? . . . 

For him “the bottom seemed to have fallen out 
of his world/’ when he had arrived at the Villino 
Gobbo and found them gone! She had heard him 
say so. 

When was that? Why had they gone and where? 
Surely it must have been when they got her sum¬ 
mons back to England. 

Damaris laughed aloud at the irony of the situ¬ 
ation. She had quarrelled with her lover for Roland’s 
sake, only to throw him into the arms of his dis- 
possessors. 

Inaction suddenly became impossible. She swung 
her feet off the couch and began to dress herself 
with feverish haste. The thought of those two, alone 
in her lily-garden, her refuge, her haunt of peace, 
became unutterably distasteful. She was conscious 
of a swift revulsion of feeling against Tempest. 
Why had he accepted Roland’s invitation? Why 
had he not waited for something more than her 
merely conventional confirmation? Did it not show 
a callousness, a lack of taste on his part? Even if 
he were already so infatuated with Tory that she 
drew him like a magnet he need not have been in 


GOLDEN DISHES 


231 


such haste to establish himself under Damaris’s 
roof in order to carry out his wooing. There was 
something inestimably jarring in the idea. 

What could he be made of? What were most 
men made of, if it came to that? Coarse, rude 
fibre, superficial desires, grasping hands . . . was 
that it? 

She did not know. To herself she confessed that 
she knew pitifully little of men, or of women, either, 
if it came to that. 

If he wanted Tory, undeveloped, selfish little crea¬ 
ture that she was, let him have her! . . . Pride 
came to her rescue once again. She must not let 
him think that she cared. She would arm herself 
at all points, let him see what he had thrown away. 

Hastily she scanned her wardrobe. She had not 
bought many clothes as yet. . . . She must get some 
more. Mourning was very restricted. . . . There 
was a new silver-grey French voile patterned lightly 
in black which she had not worn as yet. Would she 
put that on? Was it too thin, too light, too smart 
for the occasion? 

Poor Damaris, still so ignorant of what fashion 
permits, had not yet got beyond the idea of jumper 
and tweed skirt for country morning wear. Yet she 
felt that this surely was an occasion, and so with 
another qualm or two, she slipped into the pretty 
new frock. 

Its simple lines suited her slim figure. Its silvery 
tones matched her hair: and when, in a final defiance 
of the canons of mourning, she fastened an old silver 
girdle studded with lumps of turquoise matrix round 
her waist and hung a chain of the same beautifully 
coloured stones about her neck, she told herself 


232 GOLDEN DISHES 

that she did indeed look a fitting chatelaine for 
Paradell. 

With head held high, eyes bright and cheeks 
flushed to rose, she went downstairs, secure of her¬ 
self at last in her anger and wounded pride: sus¬ 
tained also by the knowledge that she was looking 
unusually well. 

She glanced into the dining-room. Benson was 
laying the table for luncheon. 

“We shall be quite a party today, Benson,” Dam- 
aris said pleasantly. “Wasn’t it an odd coincidence 
that it was Mr. Tempest who found Miss Tory and 
brought her home? He came to Greystones once 
or twice, you may remember. He is Mrs. Blaikie’s 
cousin.” 

“Very strange, miss,” Benson commented. “I 
remember him quite well. . . . The last time I saw 
him he rushed out of the house as if old Nick 
himself was after him,” she thought to herself. 
“Now he turns up with that one, after giving us all 
a night of it. What’s she up to, I wonder? No 
good, I’ll be bound. I wish to mercy Miss Damaris 
would give them the go-by and marry Sir Hubert 
and settle down quietly at Shotton. She’ll have 
neither peace nor ease as long as them two are in the 
house.” 

Damaris lingered, touching the flowers on the 
table, rearranging them slightly. 

“We must begin to entertain a little, Benson.” 

“Yes, miss.” 

“We might give a dance for Miss Tory, if only 
we could get enough young people together.” 

“Yes, miss.” Benson primmed up her mouth at 
the idea. Then she spoke out: “Why not do some 


GOLDEN DISHES 


233 


entertaining for yourself, Miss Damaris? Miss 
Tory has plenty of fun. Have a dance for your¬ 
self, miss, if you like. It’s time you did something 
for yourself at last.” 

Damaris smiled at the maid’s unusual vehemence. 

“Dear me, Benson, what principles to instil! 
Who’d want to dance with an elderly person like 
me? Why, my dancing days are over.” 

“Excuse me, miss, they haven’t begun yet.” 

“I’m afraid they’ve both come and gone, Benson, 
but I’ll think about your suggestion. We ought to 
give a dinner-party at least. Then later on there 
will be hunt breakfasts. Mr. Waring wants to 
hunt. Miss Tory will probably too.” 

“What about yourself, miss?” 

“I haven’t ridden since I was a child; I’m afraid 
I’m too old to begin again.” 

“Now, Miss Damaris, for goodness sake don’t 
begin to talk that rubbidge about being too old for 
this and too old for that. It’s enough to make you 
old to start with. Why, you’re only a bit over 
thirty, isn’t that all, miss?” 

“Thirty-two.” 

“What’s thirty-two? What’s seventy-two, for the 
matter of that, if the heart is young? Don’t let your 
heart get old whatever you do, miss.” 

“No, Benson.” Damaris felt both touched and 
amused at the unconventional outburst. 

“Please excuse me, miss, for talking to you like 
this. Briggs would say I have a nerve. But some 
way, for a long time past I’ve felt that you wanted 
some one to speak up to you.” 

Damaris laughed outright. “You and I have been 
through too much together, Benson, to stand on 


234 


GOLDEN DISHES 


ceremony always. You have been a good friend 
to me and mine. I am quite sure you will go on 
being one.” 

“I’ll try, miss,” Benson returned. She looked 
after Damaris with a kind of half-angry affection as 
she left the room. “So that’s that, pore dear,” she 
thought to herself. “You’re being put upon and 
you’ll go on being put upon by them two, and never 
see that they’re not good enough to black your 
shoes. As for that one”—which was the name by 
which the Paradell servants designated Tory— 
“she’ll do her share of the putting upon as long 
as she’s let. You may be sure of that. If Miss 
Damaris was getting her fun out of it I wouldn’t 
mind, but they’re nothing but an annoyance to her, 
them two. . . . Fancy that one staying out all 
night and then turning up with a gentleman in the 
morning! If it was a pore girl like one of us what 
would be said? If I did such a thing Briggs would 
give me what-for, that he would! But since it’s the 
angel-child! . . . And then dancing on the gravel 
there before the other gentlemen, like mad things! 
... No wonder Sir Hubert looked a bit sour! 
Relations like that would be no credit to him, pore 
gentleman!” 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 


AMARIS, having successfully tried her 
prentice hand upon an easy and uncon¬ 
cerned mention of Tempest’s name, 
felt better armed for the encounter in 
the water-garden. 

She went quickly through the tempered bright¬ 
ness of the drawing-room and out on to the terrace, 
with its green tubs of aromatic bays. 

Gay laughter and a sound of voices floated up to 
her from below. She paused for a moment before 
she came to the steps. 

Could she interrupt them? Had she the poise, 
the courage? Was she sufficiently mistress of her¬ 
self? 

A burst of laughter from Tempest followed by 
a quick: 

“You want a ducking, Signorina Vittoria! You’ll 
get it, too, before you’re much older if you’re not 
careful.” 

Damaris’s heart gave a disquieting leap. Even 
the most jealous listener could not read passion into 
such an announcement. Yet men were queer . . . 
undoubtedly queer. . . .You never knew. . . . 

She went quickly to the top of the steps. 

Tempest was sitting on the edge of the lily- 
pond. Tory lay along it near him, her hand now 
dabbling in the water, now flicking bright drops of 
it in Tempest’s face. 

“Hallo, you two! You here?” cried Damaris 
disingenuously. 



235 













236 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Tempest turned and rose when he saw her. It 
was a strange amalgam of the new and the old Dam- 
aris who was coming down the steps towards him. 

Gone was the heavy-eyed weary woman of the 
morning, so aloof in her dignity. Here was a gra¬ 
cious, smiling creature, delightfully dressed, dis- 
tractingly pretty, abominably self-possessed and sure 
of herself. No softening, no tender reminiscences 
here. 

Her first words confirmed his impression. 

“So you’ve found your way to my favourite corner 
of my kingdom,” Damaris said pleasantly. 

“Yes. It’s a delightful spot.” How annoyingly 
possessive she was! . . . My corner —my kingdom! 
She needn’t rub it in! 

“It will be when it’s restored to its former glories,” 
Damaris continued, with a swift remembrance of 
the nonsense she had talked the last time they had 
met—before the thunder-bolt had fallen and over¬ 
whelmed them. . . . “Ludlow Tempest, the famous 
author, photographed by the lily-pond at Paradell 
... in the rose-garden: the beech-tunnel. . . .” 
Did he remember, too, she wondered? 

But men’s memories have not the sentimental 
retentiveness of women’s and Damaris’s errant 
fancies had long since been wiped out of Tempest’s 
mind. 

“It will be interesting work restoring the place,” 
said Tempest. “I suppose you haven’t a very clear 
memory of what it was like when you left it?” 

“I remember every detail,” Damaris answered. 
“The only difference is that the place has shrunk a 
little since I lived here before.” 

“Places generally do. That’s the penalty of 


GOLDEN DISHES 237 

growing up. You’ll learn that some day, Signorina 
Vittoria.” 

“Shall I? But every one seems to be trying to 
persuade me that I’m grown-up already.” 

“Don’t let them. You’re much nicer as you are,” 
Tempest said, smiling. 

“Brooke was the last to rub it in. I never knew 
anything like his—neck, he’d call it himself. . . . 
That boy!” The exclamation was almost a snort. 

“He’s a very nice boy, though,” put in Damaris, 
twinkling at the remembrance of her involuntary 
eavesdropping. 

“Oh, I know he’s a favourite of yours. He’s 
just the sort to get on with elderly ladies, for he’s 
both a prig and a prude,” cried Tory viciously. 

Tempest glanced quickly at Damaris to see how 
she took this childish thrust. Somewhat to his relief, 
she smiled. The old Damaris would probably have 
quivered and felt hurt. The new one seemed to 
be armed at all points. . . . Besides, how could she 
possibly mind being dubbed elderly by this child? 
It was absurd on the face of it. 

“He must have given you unpalatable advice, 
Tory,” said Damaris. “None of us like that, do we? 
Even the elderly.” She smiled at Tempest. “Of 
course the thirties seem Methusalish to seventeen. 
To us even the forties have quite a semblance of 
youth, haven’t they?” But Tempest did not 
respond. He was looking directly at Tory. 

“Was young Brooke lecturing you on your night 
out?” he asked. 

“He was. . . . Such impertinence! As if it were 
any business of his! So long as Nutkin doesn’t 
mind-” 



238 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Fll talk to your father about it.” 

“It’s all right,” said Tory quickly. “I’ve exon¬ 
erated you already. I told him you wanted to bring 
me home at once and that I refused to stir until I’d 
had a sleep.” 

“Whom did you tell?” asked Damaris quickly. 
“Christopher or your father?” 

“Both.” Tory jumped to her feet on the ledge, 
yawned and stretched herself childishly. “And now 
I hope I’ve heard the last of it. I’m getting tired of 
the subject. Let’s show Mr. Tempus the rest of the 
place.” 

“Don’t you think it would be advisable if you saw 
whether Roland is up or not? It must be nearly 
luncheon time now.” 

“ Bien! But the poor dear has arrears of sleep 
to make up. I shan’t wake him if he hasn’t roused 
of his own accord.” Tory ran off. She found it dull 
and tiresome to share Tempest with Damaris. 

There was a brief silence when she had gone, 
which Damaris hastened to break lest it should 
grow sharp-edged in its continuance. 

“Tell me how you met them,” she said quickly, 
snatching at the first thought that came into her 
mind. 

Tempest faced her a little awkwardly. 

“First let us get things straight between us.” 

Damaris paled. What was he going to say? 

“You’re sure that you don’t mind having me 
here?” he continued hesitating. 

“Quite sure. Why should I?” 

“We—parted in anger.” He looked away. 

“Still, that is no reason why we shouldn’t be 
friends now. We—we meet on a different footing.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


239 


“Oh, how I wish I hadn’t said that,” she thought 
as soon as the words were out. “What will he 
think?” 

“Quite different,” agreed Tempest, with what she 
considered unnecessary emphasis. “If you are good 
enough to overlook my boorishness, there is, as you 
say, no reason why we shouldn’t be friends now. 
There is a new bond between us in the shape of the 
Warings, whom I met quite by chance in the woods 
near Mergozzo.” 

“Is there any such thing as chance?” Damaris 
left the lily-pond and crossed over to her favourite 
bench, her pulses quickening uncomfortably. 

“I wonder?” Tempest followed her and stood 
looking down at her. “You’ve got all you wanted 
anyhow. You should be happy. You are a rich 
woman now.” 

“Yes,” she agreed without looking at him. “Did 
you know who Roland and Tory were when you 
met them?” 

“Not at first. We were friends before I even 
suspected. I did not actually know until they had 
gone. The people called them Signor Varingo and 
Signorina Vittoria.” 

“They were happy at the Villino Gobbo?” Her 
tone was wistful. Unconsciously it asked for con¬ 
tradiction. 

“Yes, indeed,” Tempest admitted before he saw 
the trend of her question. Then he hastened to add: 
“But Waring was beside himself with delight the 
night he got your letter. He and Tory danced the 
can-can in front of the house, just as they did this 
morning. They are a pair of children. Dear, lov¬ 
able, utterly irresponsible children!” 


240 


GOLDEN DISHES 


He smiled indulgently at the thought of them. 

“He was really glad?” Damaris persisted. 

“To come back to England was the dream of his 
life,” Tempest assured her. “And you have made it 
come true.” 

Damaris’s heart swelled. Tempest’s admission 
was generous—or was it that he no longer minded 
being dispossessed? In the old days he had bit¬ 
terly resented her obsession with Roland. ... It 
must be that he no longer cared. . . . She rose, 
feeling that the solitude of the lily-garden had sud¬ 
denly become impossible. 

“Would you like to see the rest of the place 
before luncheon?” she asked. 

“Very much, thank you,” he answered conven¬ 
tionally. 

“It wasn’t possible to get much done to the 
gardens this year. I am planning great schemes 
for the autumn, though,” Damaris went on, feeling 
that conversation must be kept up at all costs. “I 
am studying garden-books, which indeed are rather 
bewildering with their wealth of suggestions, and 
make me feel hopelessly ignorant. There is so much 
to be thought of in a place like this. Roland wants 
to hunt this winter. So does Tory. I must see about 
getting horses for them.” 

“What about yourself?” he asked, as Benson had 
done. 

“I don’t think I shall hunt. I might ride again, 
though, if I’m not too old.” 

“Don’t be absurd,” said Tempest, with a satisfy¬ 
ing roughness. “If you’re in earnest it’s ridiculous. 
If it’s only a pose it’s a very silly one.” 

For a moment Damaris did not. know whether to 


GOLDEN DISHES 241 

laugh or be offended. She chose the former course. 

“Really, Ludlow!” She demurred. 

“Well, I thought you said we were to be friends.” 

“So I did, but that needn’t necessarily make you 
rude to me. I don’t pose.” 

“All women do, more or less. The only absolutely 
un-self-conscious feminine thing I’ve ever come 
across is your niece Tory.” 

“What are you saying about Tory?” cried a gay 
voice behind diem. “I’ve just succeeded in getting 
Nutkin out of bed. He insisted that I was only a 
bad dream and wouldn’t look at me at first. Then 
he remembered last night and had to wake up to 
assure himself that I was really there.” 

They turned from the kitchen-garden which they 
were just entering to see a transformed Tory. 

She had no intention of being outdone by Damaris 
in her new gown. She had coiled her tawny plaits 
over her ears in the quaint fashion that certainly 
suited her, and had slipped into a pale amber- 
coloured frock with white lines and pipings. Legs 
and feet were decorously clad in silk stockings and 
suede shoes. Round her neck she wore a brown 
amber necklace which Waring had once given her. 

“By Jove, so you’ve discarded my advice and 
taken Brooke’s!” cried Tempest. 

Tory reddened. “Nothing of the sort. I’m tired 
of being nagged at. That’s all. Every one has been 
at me, Nutkin, Damaris, everybody. So now I’m 
grown-up and I hope you’re satisfied.” 

“Eminently,” returned Damaris rather dryly. 

Near this vivacious, glowing tawny-gold creature 
she felt faded once more and fully conscious of her 
tale of years. Tory had the effect of draining her 


242 


GOLDEN DISHES 


of vitality. She wondered if Tempest noticed this. 
He was shaking his head at the girl. 

“Now I know/’ he said sadly, “that the Sig- 
norina Vittoria is indeed no more.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“That Miss Victoria Waring has irrevocably 
taken her place.” 

“Not irrevocably,” cried Tory, her hands at her 
plaits. “I’ll pull these down in a minute, if you 
like.” 

“Don’t be silly, Tory,” said Damaris, with an 
unwonted sharpness. “You really are too old for 
such baby tricks now.” 

“Oh, la, la,” cried Tory, making a face. 

Tempest laughed. The distant boom of the gong 
eased the situation. They left the garden to find 
Roland Waring strolling to meet them. 

“Mon Dieu! What a delightful group!” he ex¬ 
claimed. “I shall paint you for the Academy and 
call the picture-” 

“Crabbed age and youth!” suggested Damaris, 
recovering her temper with a smile. 

“Speak for yourself!” retorted Tory. “There’s no 
crabbed age about my beloved Mr. Tempus.” 

She slipped her hand through Tempest’s arm and 
drew him along towards the house. Her shining 
head just reached his shoulder. 

Roland turned to Damaris with an indulgent 
smile. “I suppose you’ll say that Tempest is 
another of my Pixy’s victims, O mono-maniac?” 

“It looks rather like it, doesn’t it?” returned 
Damaris shortly. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 


HAT is this latest scandal that I hear 
about Victoria Waring, Hubert?” asked 
Lady Salmarais, carefully peeling a 
peach. “The village is buzzing with 
it.” 

Salmarais, who had not seen his mother all day, 
as she had lunched with friends at Lyndhurst and 
presided over a Women’s Institute Meeting after¬ 
wards, looked at her across the polished expanse 
of mahogany dinner-table with a certain brooding 
apprehension in his brown eyes. 

“It doesn’t take much to make Thornycross buzz,” 
he rejoined, uncomfortably. 

“It seems to buzz with some reason this time.” 

“Does it?” 

“My dear boy, you should know better than any 
one else. You appear to have been dragged into 
the affair.” 

“I? What on earth do you mean, mother?” 

Lady Salmarais settled herself triumphantly in 
the judge’s seat, quite prepared to don the black cap 
as soon as she had summed up with a strong bias 
against the prisoner at the bar. It was not often 
that she had such swift confirmation of her preju¬ 
dices. 

“Is it not a fact that that Waring girl ran away 
from Paraded yesterday and spent the night out in 
the woods with a man? That you and her father 
and the Paraded and Shotton men were out ad night 
searching for her, and that her father found her and 
243 











244 


GOLDEN DISHES 


brought her back in disgrace this morning? That he 
is keeping the man practically a prisoner at Paradell 
until he gets a special license to marry the girl? . . . 
Unfortunate man, he’ll pay dearly for his folly!” 

Salmarais blinked and gasped as if some one had 
thrown a bucket of dirty water in his face. 

“What filthy lies!” he ejaculated. 

“Hubert!” 

“I beg your pardon, mother. Of course I didn’t 
mean to accuse you of lying, but it makes one’s 
blood boil to hear a simple matter distorted into 
such noisome gossip.” 

“There is no smoke without fire,” said Lady Sal¬ 
marais, significantly. 

“Gossip and lying go hand in hand,” quoted Sal¬ 
marais bitterly. The sting of his mother’s recital 
had really been in its tail, in the rankling sugges¬ 
tion of Tempest’s marrying his trove. “Findings 
are keepings!” . . . What loathly things those silly 
old tags were! 

“Perhaps you will kindly give me the truth of the 
matter, Hubert, unbiassed if possible, by your prej¬ 
udice in favour of Roland Waring.” 

“The truth is simplicity itself. Tory Waring got 
lost in the Forest yesterday. She wandered about 
without finding any landmark until she got to the 
moor near Picket Post, which she thought was the 
Holmsley Moor. She went across it, and so walked 
farther away from Thornycross than ever. By a 
great piece of luck she came across an old friend of 
the family, a chap named Tempest, who happened 
to be camping out near Dippenden. It was late and 
she was too dead beat to go any farther, but first 
thing in the morning Tempest commandeered a trap 


GOLDEN DISHES 


245 


from old Hoskin of Dippenden Edge—you know, 
the fellow I bought those Hereford heifers from— 
and brought her back to Paraded. We were having 
breakfast there when they arrived. It seems this 
man Tempest knew Damaris and her old aunt in 
London, and had run across the Warings in Italy. 
Roland fell on his neck when he saw him, and 
insisted on his staying at Paraded. There was no 
compulsion, I assure you. Tempest was only too 
willing to stay.” 

“Hum!” ejaculated Lady Salmarais. “A nice 
escapade, I must say. Who or what is this Mr. 
Tempest?” 

“A journalist, I believe. Damaris spoke as if his 
name ought to be familiar to me, but I’d never 
heard it before.” 

“How should you, my dear? Where would you 
be likely to meet journalists, or even hear of them? 
Of course he’ll have to marry the girl eventually. 
It’s the only thing to do.” 

Salmarais moved awkwardly. . . . How very 
Victorian his mother was sometimes! 

“My dear mother, I’m afraid your ideas are a 
little old-fashioned. Nowadays people are ready to 
give a man and a girl credit for behaving decently 
if chance throws them together for a night. Public 
opinion no longer forces them into a marriage which 
neither may desire.” 

Lady Salmarais sighed regretfully. “Certainly the 
morals of the day are deplorably lax.” 

“No, mother. People are more really decent and 
less hypocritical than they used to be. That’s all.” 

“I did not expect you to champion the morals 
of today, Hubert.” 


246 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Why not, mother? They’re all the morals today 
has got, anyhow,” he added, with a heavy attempt 
at humour. 

Lady Salmarais sighed again. “That is not say¬ 
ing much for them, certainly.” She pushed aside 
her Sevres dessert plate with an abrupt gesture. 
“I suppose you have imbibed these pernicious ideas 
from Roland Waring.” 

Salmarais looked at her in hasty deprecation of 
the bitterness of her tone. . . . Why was she 
always so down on poor old Roland? What had he 
ever really done to annoy her? 

“Oh, no, they’re quite my own, I assure you.” 

“I am sorry to hear it,” his mother responded, 
rising with majesty. 

Salmarais got up to open the door for her. As 
she passed out she paused to ask in the tone that 
had made truth such a difficult as well as a credit¬ 
able achievement in his youth: 

“Are you going to Paraded as usual this evening, 
or am I for once to have the pleasure of your com¬ 
pany?” 

Salmarais, who had intended to stroll over to 
Paraded after dinner to see for himself that Tory 
had suffered no id effects from her night’s adventure 
and to keep an eye upon the machinations of Tem¬ 
pest, hesitated. 

“Well, I did rather think-” 

His mother turned and put a compelling hand on 
his shoulder. She spoke with a deepening of her 
usual tone. 

“Dear boy, I am your mother. There should be 
no secrets between us. You know that I am the 
last person in the world to wish to force your confi- 



GOLDEN DISHES 


247 


dence, but—tell me, my son, do you go a-wooing to 
Paraded? Is love the magnet that draws you 
there?” She smiled archly, more Victorian than 
ever. 

Reddening shamefacedly as a schoolboy, Sal- 
marais nodded and gulped. 

“Yes, mother.” It was a relief to have the truth 
out at last. As far as he was concerned he did not 
care who was aware of the state of his feelings, but 
he had inwardly shrunk from the idea of his 
mother’s disapproval of his suit. 

To himself, blinded by the sudden passion that 
had swept into his middle age like a whirlwind, 
there seemed nothing incongruous in the disparity 
between forty and seventeen—a woodbine, wild and 
fragrant, clinging to a sturdy oak: a briar-rose 
climbing round a giant beech: similes multiplied 
themselves. But he had an uneasy feeling that Lady 
Salmarais would not approve of either briar-rose or 
woodbine. If, to carry on his image, he were beech 
or oak, she would much prefer to see, say, a firmly- 
rooted silver birch growing by his side. Her ensuing 
words and actions confirmed this supposition. 

“Ah, my son,” she murmured, as she bent forward 
to kiss him. “It is time you sought a helpmate. 
I grow old. The Dower House is large enough for 
my requirements. It is my dearest wish to hold 
your first-born son in my arms before I die.” 

“Dear mother, you mustn’t talk of dying. It’s 
an absurdity, a young woman like you.” He re¬ 
turned her kiss awkwardly, paused and said rather 
low: “You wish me luck, then?” 

“Of course I wish you luck.” 

“In spite of what you said just now?” 


248 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“What did I say just now?” 

“About—about the Warings?” 

Lady Salmarais looked at her son in astonish¬ 
ment. “My dear Hubert, I hope that I am not so 
small-minded as to visit the sins of the guilty upon 
the innocent. To be frank with you, I do not care 
very much for the Waring connection, but step- 
relations are practically no relations and these do 
not even bear the same name. Their paths and 
yours will lie far apart in the future, I trust.” 

Salmarais drew a quick breath. . . . She had not 
understood, after all. She thought that it was 
Damaris whom he courted, not his wild, impulsive 
Tory. He must undeceive her. 

“But, mother,” he began. 

She stopped him with a gesture. “I know your 
generous heart, my son. I should be quite with you 
in approving of an adequate allowance for Roland 
Waring. As for that girl Victoria, a good finishing 
school would be the only thing for her, though I 
fancy that she might finish the unfortunate mis¬ 
tresses before they succeeded in finishing her.” She 
smiled at her own somewhat ponderous joke, then 
added playfully: “But I mustn’t keep you from your 
courting, Hubert—a pretty, old-fashioned word 
which has fallen into disuse. You will let me know 
when you have news for me, dear?” 

A coward impulse seized Hubert Salmarais. He 
felt suddenly incapable of undeceiving his mother. 
He shrank from the thought of what the atmosphere 
of Shotton would be like were he to avow the true 
objective of his wooing. After all, no names had 
been mentioned: no wilful deception had taken 
place. If his mother happened to misunderstand it 


GOLDEN DISHES 


249 


was not his fault and no real harm was done. Once 
Tory had accepted him he would be able to face a 
whole regiment of mothers. Until then, surely he 
might take advantage of this fortunate misconcep¬ 
tion on the part of Lady Salmarais and continue his 
visits to Paraded uncommented upon. 

He hesitated . . . and was lost! 

“You shall be the very first to know, mother,” he 
assured her hypocritically. 

It was the first time that he had wilfully deceived 
her. It gave his honest conscience a pang even 
while he deliberately profited by the deception. 

He went out into the misty September night 
whistling tunelessly. 

Such is the demoralizing influence of love! 

Lady Salmarais, had she known, would have 
called it rather the demoralizing influence of Tory 
Waring, and added another black mark to her 
rapidly growing account against the unconscious 
girl. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 


T was to Damaris rather than to Tory 
that Salmarais talked during his visits 
to Paraded. He found it easier and, in 
a sense, more satisfactory. Damaris 
was a restful listener rather than a 
stimulating conversationalist. He could talk quietly 
to her of the things that interested him, his farm, 
his prize cattle, his collection of beetles, the while 
he watched Tory, conscious in every fibre of her 
lightest word, her least movement. 

After Tempest’s advent it was more difficult than 
ever to get hold of the girl. She was just as 
friendly to Salmarais as of old, tossed him merry 
phrases now and again, called him “mon vieux” just 
as she used to do, but whenever he tried to edge 
her away from the others for a tete-a-tete she was 
elusive as a rainbow. 

On picnics it was she and Tempest who wandered 
off together exploring. She took absolute possession 
of “Mr. Tempus,” insisted on showing him her 
favourite parts of the Forest, took him even to the 
little dancing glade which should, by all the laws 
of romance, have been held sacred to poor Hubert 
Salmarais. 

The whole situation seemed unreal to Tempest. 
He could not believe that he was actually under 
Damaris’s roof as her guest and no more. They 
met indeed, as she had said, on a different footing: 
he, the restrained guest, she, the purely conven¬ 
tional hostess. 

He was grateful for Tory’s monopoly of him, 
250 











GOLDEN DISHES 


251 


which seemed in some odd way to relieve him of any 
sense of responsibility for the position. He en¬ 
joyed his long yarns with Roland Waring, which 
generally developed into an inconsequent monologue 
on the part of the painter, punctuated by occa¬ 
sional dramatic denunciations of those who differed 
from him on any question of Art. 

He watched with as much detachment as he could 
achieve the progress of Hubert Salmarais’s apparent 
courtship of Damaris. It was nothing to him, of 
course, he tried to persuade himself, but he was suffi¬ 
ciently clear-sighted to realize that it is always diffi¬ 
cult to accept the second place when one has hitherto 
occupied the first. 

He and Damaris had parted as lovers. They met 
as—friends? Scarcely. Between the two positions 
was a great gulf fixed across which neither now 
had even a plank to throw. Her marriage with 
Salmarais would separate past from present with a 
finality which Tempest for one would never question. 

Salmarais’s frequent offerings to Tory of choco¬ 
lates and marrons glaces he looked upon merely as 
propitiation of the one nearest to the divinity. That 
the man could seriously aspire to the child herself 
never entered his head: nor to give her her due, had 
such an idea ever occurred to Tory. 

She watched with interest the progress of what 
she called “I’affaire Damaris though she once de¬ 
clared to Tempest that her aunt would be much 
more sensible if she remained an old maid. 

“Why?” he asked, as they tramped side by side 
across Holmsley Moor one sunny morning. 

“She’s rich. Why should she bother herself with 
a man?” 


252 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Is a man a bother?” 

“Isn’t he?” exclaimed Tory, her eyes dancing. 
“Look at all the trouble I have with Nutkin!” 

“Then you don’t intend to marry?” he queried. 

“Certainly not. One man is bad enough, but 
two-? Oh, la la! ,} 

“You mean that now, but some day-” 

“Is no day, as old Binns the gardener says. By 
the way, did you ever see such a collection of crocks 
as Damaris has gathered about her at Paradell?” 

“Crocks?” he echoed. 

“Nutkin says that she goes about collecting lame 
dogs. No sound one has any chance. It’s her hobby, 
he declares.” 

Tempest felt a sudden and most unwelcome lump 
in his throat. . . . She wasn’t altogether mercenary, 
then. 

“Rather a fine one, don’t you think?” he said, 
despising himself for this absurd gust of emotion. 

“Oh, it’s just a fad. She won’t have any one 
about her who doesn’t limp somewhere or other— 
even us!” 

“Where do you limp?” 

“In our purses,” cried Tory, with a careless laugh. 
“They were certainly dead lame before we came 
here! Old Binns is rheumatic and no one else would 
employ him, the under-gardener was gassed in Flan¬ 
ders and has a dreadful cough. The cook is a war 
widow, the chauffeur has a lame leg—literally. The 
maids have histories, I’m sure. Even Christopher 

Brooke-” She stopped and reddened. “Why 

did I think of him—annoying creature?” 

“Well, what of him?” Tempest insisted. 

“He had hardly anything to do until Damaris took 





GOLDEN DISHES 


253 


him up. She introduced him to Lady Salmarais and 
other stuffy people with influence, and the conse¬ 
quence is that he’s getting on splendidly now. You 
knew him long ago, didn’t you?” 

“I’ve met him at my cousin, Mrs. Blaikie’s, and 
we came across each other in town once or twice 
during the war. We never met at the Front, though, 
for I was in Italy for most of my service, while he 
was in France, I believe.” 

“Then you don’t know him well?” 

“Scarcely at all. He seems a very decent chap, 
though.” 

“Does he, indeed? That shows how poor your 
judgment is,” said Tory, her brows drawn together. 
“Let’s sit here for a minute. You can see right 
away to Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst from this.” 

They sat down among the rusting purple of the 
heather which stretched away for miles on either 
side. On the horizon the slim spire of Lyndhurst 
church pierced the blue distance of the forest. Be¬ 
neath them the tawny mantle of the moor dipped 
to the misty plain where Brockenhurst lay dream¬ 
ing amidst bowering woods. The bracken patterned 
the tracts of heather with a rich design of bronze 
and gold. Bees hummed about them in the scented 
air. In the blue of the sky swallows eddied and 
circled. 

“Look! They’re gathering for flight,” said Tem¬ 
pest idly. “They’ll be off soon. The swifts have 
gone already.” 

To his surprise Tory’s face clouded. “Why did 
you remind me?” 

“Of what?” 

“That they’re following the sun.” 


254 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Why? Do you want to go too?” 

She nodded. “Not this very moment. But I 
shall.” 

“You must see what an English winter is like 
first.” 

“Brrr!” She gave a mock shiver. “I feel it in 
my bones that an English winter will be the very 
devil. It will be cold and depressing and horrible— 
like Lady Salmarais!” 

“Nonsense!” said Tempest shortly. “You can’t 
expect life to be all sunshine and rose-leaves. 
You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth.” 

Tory laughed. “Now you*re beginning to scold 
me!” she said. “But I don’t mind.” She made a 
little wriggling movement closer to him as a child 
or a dog might. “Do you know, Mr. Tempus, that 
next to Nutkin I like you better than any one else 
in the world.” 

Tempest was touched. This frank affection 
warmed him after Damaris’s coldness. He patted 
the brown hand that had stolen within his arm. 

“No? Do you really? By Jove, I do feel flat¬ 
tered. . . . Better even than Salmarais?” 

Tory laughed again and squeezed his arm. 

“Poor old mastiff! I feel his watch-dog eyes on 
me wherever I go. I don’t think he can approve 
of me as a future niece. No one really approves of 
us here, I’m afraid. That’s one reason why I like 
you so much. You know our worst and like us in 
spite of it.” 

“Or perhaps because of it,” suggested Tempest 
smiling. 

“Oh, that’s even nicer still!” 

“But—Damaris loves you,” he said. 


GOLDEN DISHES 255 

Tory shook her head again. “She may love 
Nutkin. She certainly doesn’t love me.” 

“Have you done anything to make her?” 

“Well, no,” Tory admitted reluctantly. “I know 
I’m an ungrateful little beast after all she’s done 
for us, but there’s something about Damaris that 
rubs me up the wrong way. I don’t know what it 
is, but it’s there. I expect she feels the same way 
about me. I never cared for her, even before I 
saw her,” Tory continued in a sudden burst of 
candour. “She always went on as if Nutkin be¬ 
longed solely to her.” 

“Silly little jealous child! Don’t you know that 
your father has room in his heart for you both? 
You’re first, without doubt.” 

“I—suppose so. . . . You’re a nice big thing, 
Mr. Tempus.” She rubbed her cheek suddenly 
against his sleeve. “Mon Dieu! There are Damaris 
and Hubert coming to look for us. Is there a spot 
where we could hide?” 

“I’m afraid not. Besides, they’ve seen us. Sal- 
marais is waving his stick. There’s no escape. 
We’d better put a good face on it.” He jumped to 
his feet and held out his hands to Tory, who swung 
herself up beside him in an instant, looking with 
distaste at the approaching couple. 

They seemed to be on excellent terms with each 
other, Tempest thought as they came nearer. . . . 
It certainly would be a very sensible arrangement 
for Damaris. Somehow he could not connect any 
romance with the affair. If Damaris had really 
cared for him as she once professed to do. . . . 
Damn that fellow with his heavy jowl and brood¬ 
ing eyes! What was there in him besides his place 


256 


GOLDEN DISHES 


and title to attract a woman like her? But such 
superficialities had their own lure for women. 
Extraordinary creatures! . . . who could fathom 
them? 

Damaris waved a friendly greeting as they 
approached. “It was quite a chance our finding 
you,” she said. “Hubert came over to know if we 
would go to Shotton to tea this afternoon. Lady 
Salmarais has kindly invited us all. We met the 
baker who told us that he had seen you going in 
this direction, so we came over the moor on chance. 
We had almost given up the search when Hubert 
caught sight of you.” 

“You must be tired,” said Tempest. “We have 
come a long way.” 

“Just a little,” Damaris admitted. “But I am 
becoming quite a walker in spite of my misspent 
youth in town.” She sat down on a heathery 
mound. 

“Will you come over to that dip with me, Tory?” 
said Salmarais boldly. “There’s something there 
that I want to show you.” 

“Oh, very well,” she answered, not too graciously, 
with a bright glance of resignation at Tempest, who 
was still standing by Damaris’s side. 

“Won’t you sit down, too, for a moment?” Dam¬ 
aris said. “It makes me feel unsettled to see you 
standing there.” 

“You certainly mustn’t feel unsettled,” he re¬ 
joined lightly, stretching himself out on the heather 
beside her. “What a glorious place this is!” 

“Yes, isn’t it?” she assented softly. 

“You could be content to spend your life here?” 

“Quite content. I should like to travel later on, 


GOLDEN DISHES 257 

but for the moment this”—she waved one hand in 
a comprehensive gesture—“is quite enough.” 

A sudden silence fell, unbroken save for the whis¬ 
pering of a little wind among the fading heather 
and the murmur of innumerable bees. 

Damaris’s lips curved to a faint smile at the 
comic irony of the situation. 

Here was she with at least the outward sem¬ 
blance of all her dreams come true! 

Paraded was hers, with riches more abundant 
than she had ever hoped for: Roland and Tory were 
with her at last, and to crown all, Ludlow Tempest 
sat by her side on Holmsley Moor in the tempered 
glory of a September morning! 

Yet what Dead Sea Apples these cherished 
dreams were, fair to the eye of anticipation, bitter 
to the lips of realization! 

If only she could have blotted out the intervening 
months and stood once more in the library at 
Greystones how differently she would have acted! 
If only she had not always been so curbed and 
quelled that decisive action had seemed impossible! 
If only she had then had her present poise, her 
present knowledge, her present courage! If . . . 
if ... if ... ! 

“Les lauriers sont coupes. 

Nous n’irons plus au boisl” 

She did not know that she had spoken aloud 
until she heard Tempest say rather hardly: 

“Who wants to go back to a cut-down wood? IPs 
one of the most melancholy sights in the world!” 

It was her way of telling him that the past was 


258 


GOLDEN DISHES 


really past, of course: that the laurels, “all dream¬ 
ing of singers to be,” were felled, to grow no more: 
that to Salmarais belonged the future with what¬ 
ever crown it might hold. 

“Yes. . . . Anything that has grown to such 
beauty ... to be cut down so ruthlessly. . . .” 
Damaris bit her lip as she strove for normality, for 
coherence. She got up from her tussock suddenly. 
“I think we’d better be getting home. I am quite 
rested now.” 

They walked along in silence for a little. Then 
Damaris turned to him in swift appeal. 

“Need I make conversation for you, Ludlow?” 

“Certainly not. We know each other well enough 
not to chatter unnecessarily.” 

With this agreement Damaris should have been 
content, but directly he had spoken a fear of the 
continuous silence fell upon her. Once there would 
have been sweetest intimacy in it. Now it dropped 
between them like a veil of darkness, hiding un¬ 
known dangers. 

“Ah, there are Hubert and Tory!” Damaris ex¬ 
claimed at last with some relief. “Poor old Hubert! 
I hope she is being kind to him.” 

Her tone irritated Tempest slightly, for it did not 
fit with his new conception of her. It held two 
unexpected qualities, a friendly pity for the man, a 
critical uncertainty about the girl. 

“Why do you speak like that? Is there any 
special reason why Tory should be kind to Sal¬ 
marais?” 

She looked at him wonderingly. “Is it possible 
that you, too, have not seen?” 

“Seen what?” He spoke quite shortly. 


GOLDEN DISHES 259 

“Seen that poor old Hubert is over head and ears 
in love with Tory,” she answered. 

“In love with Tory?” he cried incredulously. 

His tone sounded angry, outraged, Damaris 
thought. 

“Yes.” 

“Preposterous!” 

“It is, rather,” she admitted. “But then the truth 
often is preposterous. One can’t help that.” 

“But she’s a child and he—he must be over 
forty!” 

“He is about forty, I think. But there’s no need 
for you to be so agitated, Ludlow. It is a case for 
pity rather than censure. It is most unfortunate 
that a man of his age should fall in love with a girl 
of hers. Of course he can have no possible appeal 
for her. She looks on him, naturally, as a contem¬ 
porary of her father’s. He is kind, good-hearted, a 
true friend—too fine a man to be hurt as I’m afraid 
that Tory must inevitably hurt him.” 

“You surely don’t want that child to marry 
him?” cried Tempest, indignantly. 

“No. But I equally don’t want that child to hurt 
him. She has never suffered herself. She won’t 
realize in the least how deadly earnest it is all 
to poor Hubert. She’ll laugh at him, make a jest 
of his love for her as she does of everything else. 
Youth can be so cruel.” 

“Still, it’s rather a good thing to find some one 
who goes through life laughing.” He answered her 
tone rather than her words. 

“Yes, with people, not at them,” put in Damaris 
quickly. 

She was ruffled at his instant defence of Tory, 


260 


GOLDEN DISHES 


bitterly amused that it was he now who should 
champion the Warings . . . and to her. 

“Tory isn’t old enough to marry,” he went on. 

“No, nor fit in any way.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“She’s too selfish, too uncontrolled, too unde¬ 
veloped.” 

“Aren’t you rather hard on her?” 

“I don’t think so,” Damaris answered. “I don’t 
want to be. . . . Of course I had no real youth 
myself. Perhaps I do judge the child too hardly. 
I don’t know.” She felt suddenly tired, but it was 
with a mental rather than a physical fatigue. 

Tempest harked back to her earlier revelation. 

“It’s absurd for a man of Salmarais’s age-” 

“Middle-aged love is generally considered absurd 
by those who don’t experience it,” said Damaris im¬ 
patiently. “Do let us change the subject.” 

Was she girding at him now? Tempest won¬ 
dered. How changed, how embittered she was! 

. . . But he could thrust too. 

“Hearts have been caught on the re-bound before 
now,” he said significantly. 

She looked at him in surprise for an instant before 
his meaning dawned on her. Then she reddened 
from chin to brow. “I think you might have spared 
me that,” she said with a dignity imperilled by leap¬ 
ing heart and throbbing pulses. 

Tempest reddened too. “It’s not a criminal sug¬ 
gestion.” 

“It is one in exceedingly bad taste,” Damaris 
returned. 

They walked on in silence until they overtook 
the others. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 


HAT is it that you want to show me?” 
asked Tory rather crossly. “A mare’s 
nest, I suppose.” Salmarais laughed, 
robbing her jibe of its sting. 

“Something much better worth see¬ 
ing,” he answered. “A mere glimpse of it has 
brought me good luck already.” 

“Has it?” said Tory indifferently. “In what 
way?” 

“It has given me the chance of having you to 
myself for a moment.” 

Tory laughed. “Poor misguided creature! And 
he calls that good luck!” 

“He does indeed,” answered Salmarais. 

He did not mind how much she laughed at him 
in her pretty merry way. Roland had always 
laughed at him and he had oddly enjoyed it. In 
his inmost heart the two were linked together indis¬ 
solubly. His feeling for Tory only intensified the 
strength of the original bond between him and 
Roland, complementing it, as it were, by its marvel¬ 
lous addition of the feminine element. 

He edged a little closer to the girl now. He 
longed to put his arm round her shoulders, even to 
slip it through hers, as her father so often did, but 
he was afraid to venture. 

“You are such a little bit of a thing next me,” he 
said fondly, looking down at the tawny-gold head 
that barely reached to his shoulder. “I could easily 
pick you up and run away with you, if I chose.” 











262 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Please don’t choose, mon vieux” 

“Why not?” 

“It would be so boring for us both.” 

“It wouldn’t be boring for me.” 

“It would for me,” declared Tory frankly. “There¬ 
fore also for you in the long run.” 

“I don’t think so,” said Salmarais, his pulses 
quickening at the thought of real solitude with her. 

“Oh, la, la, how obstinate you are! But then 
most men are,” she added resignedly. “Here we are 
at your dip. Where’s the treasure?” 

“Here it is.” He jumped into a hollow out of 
which gravel had been dug. 

Over its yellowish shingle heather had grown once 
more. A tuft at the bottom showed a tarnished 
white amid the rusty purple of the rest. Salmarais 
stooped to pick it. His big brown fingers trembled 
as he handed the little bunch to Tory. 

“White heather for you,” he said simply. 

“But how charming!” cried Tory. “It always 
brings good luck.” 

“Only when given.” 

“Then I will give you a bit, mon vieux. Stoop 
down, big one, and let me put it in your buttonhole.” 

She stood on tiptoe as she pulled a sprig into 
place in his buttonhole. Her nearness went to 
Salmarais’s head like wine. 

With an irresistible impulse, forgetting all else 
save the sudden urgency of his passion, his arms 
went swiftly round her. He crushed her to him, 
kissing her burnished hair and a sunburnt corner 
of a cheek. 

Tory, outraged, struggled furiously out of his 
grasp. 


GOLDEN DISHES 263 

“How dare you?” she panted, stamping. “You 
know I hate any one to touch me!” 

Sanity returned to Salmarais. He gave a little 
gasp as he stood awkwardly before his incensed 
young goddess. “I’m sorry,” he faltered. “I didn’t 
mean to offend you. I’m awfully sorry.” 

“That’s all very well,” began Tory wrathfully. 

“You don’t know—you don’t know—how irre¬ 
sistible you are!” he faltered again. 

Tory, her head on one side, regarded him with 
an unwavering bird-like stare. Then the corners 
of her mouth twitched. 

“Am I?” she pondered. “That sounds rather 
nice. Am I really irresistible?” 

“You are. Absolutely. You must forgive me.” 

“I suppose I must,” she conceded. “For Dam- 
aris’s sake I’d better not quarrel with you. Besides, 
you’re Nutkin’s age-” 

“I’m not. I’m a year younger.” 

“What’s a year? You’re centuries older than he 
is in many ways. . . . But no more fatherly em¬ 
braces, if you please, mon vieux” 

“It wasn’t a fatherly embrace,” Salmarais mut¬ 
tered, reddening darkly. 

“It wasn’t as nice as one, certainly,” said Tory 
candidly. “Want of practice, I suppose! Anyhow, 
fatherly or uncle-ly, no more. I’m in earnest. I 
hate being touched by any one but Nutkin.” 

“You don’t mind touching Tempest.” 

“Ah, that’s different. Besides, he’s a much older 
friend than you are.” 

“Not as regards your father.” 

“I’m not regarding Nutkin now. I’m regarding 
myself,” 



264 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Regard me for a moment, for a change.” 

“But I don’t want to regard you, mon vieux!” 

“Why not?” he asked heavily. 

For a moment Tory struggled between politeness 
and a desire to tell the truth. She compromised. 

“Well, I just don’t,” she answered childishly. 
“That’s all.” 

“I see.” Salmarais nodded, although he did not 
see anything beyond the fact that the moment was 
unpropitious for him to reveal his wonderful secret 
to the girl. 

She was young, virginal, shy of life and its reali¬ 
ties. He must be patient. He must do nothing to 
frighten, to hurry her. Despite his swift surges of 
passion he felt an endless capacity for patience 
well within him: a patience content so long as its 
end was within sight. 

His conscience still pricked him slightly at 
thought of his mother, who was giving this tea-party 
today for no other reason than to demonstrate to her 
little world that she approved her son’s choice of 
Damaris Packe, at whose family no one must dare 
to cast stones of disapprobation. He had an uneasy 
feeling that this public whitewashing of Tory War¬ 
ing would never have been attempted but for Lady 
Salmarais’s misconception of his own matrimonial 
intentions; and as his mother was the only person 
in the world beside the two Warings whom he really 
loved the thought recurred with a sting from time 
to time, determinedly though he strove to thrust it 
aside. 

It was with a sense of relief rather than dis¬ 
appointment that he saw the near approach of Dam¬ 
aris and Tempest. 


GOLDEN DISHES 265 

The two couples met and mingled. Conversation 
was general on the way back to Paradell. 

Waring met them near the gate, a telegram in 
his hand. 

“For you, Tempest,” he said. “Inspiration 
deserted me this morning. I found this in the hall 
as I came out to meet you.” 

“May I?” Tempest looked at Damaris and tore 
open the orange envelope. “It’s from Burnett of the 
London Weekly. He wants to see me immediately. 
I’m afraid I’ll have to go up to town by the first 
train I can catch, if you’ll excuse my dashing off 
so unceremoniously.” He turned again to Damaris. 

Was it relief which leaped so quickly into her 
eyes? Beneath the turmoil of other feelings he 
knew that in his own mind relief certainly pre¬ 
dominated. 

The situation at Paradell had suddenly become 
strained. In this moment of its ending he realized 
that it had been impossible all along. It was as 
if some unknown opiate had lulled his senses to an 
earlier perception of the fact. 

“If you must go-” began Damaris. 

Tory interrupted her angrily. “But he mustn’t. 
Of course he mustn’t. Why, you’ve only been here 
a few days. You can’t possibly desert us yet.” 

“I’m afraid I must,” Tempest returned. “You 
know I was about to strike camp the day after I 
found you. I’ve lingered too long as it is in this 
Vale of Avilion. It’s high time I did some work 
again.” 

“Nonsense! What does that old Burnett want 
you for?” 

“To put some more work in my way, probably.” 



266 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Another roving commission?” 

“I sincerely hope so.” 

“Well, Tempest, we mustn’t stand in your light if 
you’re really sufficiently sordid-minded to undertake 
your task-master’s filthy commission,” said Waring, 
his arm thrust through Tory’s. 

Tempest laughed. “I’m afraid I am. I must get 
off this afternoon if it doesn’t inconvenience you.” 

“There’s a train to Waterloo at 3.30 from Brock- 
enhurst. That’s the first you can catch from this,” 
said Salmarais. 

“That will do splendidly. I’m to dine with Bur¬ 
nett at his club tonight. It was well I got my 
camping outfit off the other day.” 

“But it’s too disappointing,” complained Tory. 

“Never mind, Pixy-thing. We’ll run up to town 
later and beard him in his lair. We still have an 
unfulfilled engagement at the Coq d’Or, remember.” 

“I haven’t forgotten,” Tempest answered. 

“We’d better have luncheon at once,” said Dam- 
aris. “You’ll stay, won’t you, Hubert?” 

“No thanks. I must be getting back. My mother 
will want to know about this afternoon.” 

“Make my apologies to Lady Salmarais, please,” 
said Tempest, “and thank her for her kind invita¬ 
tion, which-” 

“Which he’ll be delighted to accept next time he 
comes to Paraded,” cried Tory. “I’ll go in the car 
with you to see you off, old thing! Briggs can 
drop me at Shotton on his way back.” 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Waring. 
“You’ll walk decorously across the Park to the tea- 
party at the appointed time with your poor neglected 
father.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


267 


“Have I neglected him?” crooned Tory. “That 
mustn’t be! . . . We’ll have our sad farewell at 
Paradell after all, Mr. Tempus.” 

Salmarais turned away with a swift leaping of his 
pulses. His little wild bird! . . . Her heart was 
asleep as yet to any man but her father! . . . 
He would never wish to part them. He would be 
quite content, he thought, if she so willed it, to 
remain a “shadowy third,” so long as she let him 
definitely into her life. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 



|UDLOW TEMPEST was gone, and he 
had not even seen the library! That 
was the thought which absurdly pricked 
Damaris the most. He had flashed into 
her life for a moment and out of it 
again, and she had never for one instant come really 
near him. He had seemed to be Roland’s guest 
rather than hers. The Warings had monopolized 
him completely during his brief stay, quite with 
his own volition, she was forced to admit. He 
had shown no real desire to re-establish even friendly 
relations with her. He had seemed quite content 
to accept the situation as it stood. 

And yet . . . and yet, surely something was 
owing from him to her, some word of regret, of 
apology, some little appeal for forgiveness? They 
had parted in anger. It had been his fault even 
more than hers. Surely she had done what she 
could. She had received him with as much warmth 
as was desirable. She had played the hostess to the 
best of her ability throughout those puzzling crowded 
days, during which, under her calm, she had felt 
hurt, lonely and bewildered. 

Ludlow had shown very plainly that he no longer 
wanted her. His jibe about Hubert Salmarais 
emphasized his attitude. Damaris’s cheeks burned 
at the remembrance. 

How could he? Oh, how could he? 

She was glad that he had gone: glad that she 
would have quiet again in which to collect her 
268 










GOLDEN DISHES 


269 


troubled thoughts and regain her shaken poise. It 
amused her even while it hurt her to see how com¬ 
pletely he had capitulated to the Warings, the origi¬ 
nal cause of their quarrel. He, who had resented 
being dispossessed by them, was now possessed by 
them, wholly and utterly. He had deserted her 
only to go over to the enemy—she pulled herself 
up with a jerk when she discovered whither her 
thoughts were trending. 

The enemy! . . . What was she thinking of? 
Roland and Tory: her best-beloved and his child! 

. . . Ah, but Roland was her best-beloved no 
longer. Every fibre of her being cried out unwill¬ 
ingly for the man who did not want her any more. 
She hated herself for it. She tried to spur pride to 
her rescue, but it was no use. All her thwarted 
womanhood rose within her, demanding her mate. 

Suddenly she saw the situation clearly, stripped of 
sophistries and sentiment. It was she herself who 
had denied love: she herself who had put other 
things before it, sisterly affection, desire for money, 
prudence masquerading as duty. 

If she had not been so eager to possess Aunt 
Charlotte’s money—no matter for what unselfish 
purpose—she might have been happy now with the 
happiness for which her sore heart craved. She 
could have married Ludlow, as he had wanted her 
to do, and gone back to nurse Aunt Charlotte to 
the end, telling her frankly what she had done, for 
deceit held no place in Damaris Packe. Roland 
and Tory could have got on very well without her. 
She saw that now. Probably they were happier in 
their careless wandering life than she had been 
able to make them at Paraded. 


270 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Paradell and its comforts really meant very little 
to them. She saw that too, with this new clarity of 
vision. It was she, and she alone with her greed for 
“golden dishes” who had created this situation, and 
it was for her alone to deal with it. It was for her 
to make up to Roland and Tory for anything of 
which she might have unwittingly defrauded them. 

It was while she was in this chastened mood that 
the familiar sound of an approaching motor-cycle 
fell upon her ears. 

After the departure of Tempest the weather had 
changed with all the dramatic suddenness of the 
English climate. The sun was veiled in heavy mists 
which thinned at noon but did not clear. Grass was 
grey with moisture. Trees, bushes, bracken dripped 
from dawn to dusk. There was a dank smell of 
decaying vegetation in the air. 

Within the house polished wood and mirrors were 
faintly beaded: chintzes felt chill to the touch. 
Crackling wood-fires did something to dispel the 
gloom, but were liable to over-heat an already mild 
atmosphere. 

Waring alternately shivered and sweated, mur¬ 
muring his most picturesque maledictions not always 
below his breath. He and Tory spent most of their 
time in the studio, he at his easel painting furiously, 
she with a bagful of his socks to darn, accumulated 
since the sunny days, cobbling the holes therein and 
smoking her little yellow cigarettes. 

Damaris rarely disturbed them there. She felt 
that the studio held no welcome for her. There¬ 
fore it was with a distinct sense of pleasure that she 
rose now to greet Christopher Brooke. 

He brought a breath of the outer world into the 


GOLDEN DISHES 


271 


closeness of the drawing-room: he seemed to exhale 
a clean wholesomeness of wind and mist into the 
somewhat stuffy atmosphere. 

“Where are you on your way to now?” asked 
Damaris, smiling. 

“Nowhere. Just Paradell,” he answered. “It’s 
some time since I was here, so I thought I was 
about due again.” 

“You’re always welcome, Christopher, but your 
visit today is specially timely. The new wing is 
finished. The men have done the work capitally, 
I think.” 

“Good.” 

They talked business for a little while, inspected 
the new wing and came back to the drawing-room 
again, where Benson was busy with tea. 

“Will you tell Mr. Waring that tea is ready, 
please, Benson? He never hears the gong up in the 
studio.” Damaris sat down by the tea-table. 

“Is Tempest still here?” Brooke asked. 

“No. He had to go back to town last week. By 
the way, Christopher, I want you to give me the 
address of that horse-dealer you once spoke of. I 
must see about getting mounts for Roland and 
Tory.” 

“What about yourself?” 

“I don’t think I’ll ride this winter. You see,” 
she went on with a sudden desire for a sympathetic 
listener, “my whole life is so new that everything 
is still rather bewildering. I led such a cramped 
existence at Greystones that all the fresh vistas 
suddenly opening before me seem rather alarming. 
I must have time to get used to things, try my wings, 
as it were, before I attempt to fly too far.” 


272 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“I see,” he nodded, understanding^. 

There was a rush of feet down the stairs without, 
a quick double thud, as if two people had jumped 
the last steps together, a scurry across the hall and 
a riotous entry of Roland, Tory and a young Sealy- 
ham terrier which was Salmarais’s latest offering to 
his unconscious divinity. 

“I must get a dog of my own,” thought Damaris. 
“He would be great company.” 

“A visitor!” cried Waring, who appeared to be 
in the highest spirits, despite the dampness of the 
day. “By all that’s wonderful, our Brooke That 
babbles by’! Come on that invention of the devil, 
the motor-bicycle, I presume.” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Brooke. “I ran over to 
see how the work was getting on, and incidentally 
to find out how you and Tory were bearing this 
damp weather.” 

“Wonderfully, Brooke, wonderfully. By living in 
an air-tight studio with a good fire-” 

“Into which I have just thrown the last of Nut- 
kin’s socks,” cried Tory, who could not keep out 
of the conversation any longer, though she was still 
annoyed with Brooke. “You must buy new ones, 
Nutkin. I refuse to darn these any more.” 

“What is woman for but to darn her man’s 
socks?” demanded Waring. “Wretched, effete crea¬ 
ture, was it for this that I neglected your education 
so persistently?” 

“Nutkin’s gone suddenly mad,” Tory explained, 
“because he has just had a note from Hubert Sal- 
marais offering to mount us both whenever we want 
to ride. He says his horses are absolutely eating 
their heads off for want of exercise and that he has 



GOLDEN DISHES 


273 


a perfect little bay mare that would just suit me. 
He really ought to have offered her to you, Dam¬ 
ans,” Tory went on apologetically, “only I suppose 
you told him you didn’t want to ride.” 

“No. I haven’t spoken to Hubert on the subject 
at all,” Damaris returned, a ring of disappointment 
in her tone. “I’ve just been talking to Christopher, 
though, about getting mounts for you both, but 
Hubert has forestalled me, apparently.” 

“It will save you both trouble and expense, my 
dear,” said Waring, philosophically. 

“Yes, but, Roland, do you think you ought to 
take them?” Damaris demurred. She spoke for her 
brother’s ear alone. 

“Why not? Hubert says it will be doing him a 
kindness.” 

“No doubt, but-” Her eyes strayed involun¬ 

tarily towards Tory. 

Waring laughed, and, as was his wont, gave his 
thoughts instant speech without considering the 
consequence. 

“Dear old fuss-pot! . . . Pixy-thing, Damaris 
doesn’t think we ought to ride Hubert’s horses 
because she has taken it into her silly head that the 
poor old chap is in love with you!” 

“With me?” Tory cried. “What utter nonsense! 

That’s only jealousy on her part! Why-!” she 

stopped abruptly, crimsoning as she thought of 
Hubert Salmarais’s rough embrace that morning on 
the moor. 

Brooke, watching her, wondered why she red¬ 
dened. . . . Was Miss Packe right? . . . Did 
Salmarais really dare . . . ? 

“So I told her,” said Waring comfortably, with a 




274 


GOLDEN DISHES 


quizzical glance at his sister. “But every woman, 
if at heart a rake, as Pope declares, is also at 
heart a matchmaker. Heaven won’t be heaven for 
your enchanting sex, my dear, if there is neither 
marrying nor giving in marriage there.” 

The trend which the conversation had taken jarred 
on Damaris. She had only meant to convey the 
merest hint to her brother and he had clothed her 
suggestion in crudest words, making a jest of poor 
Hubert and his love, which, however ridiculous it 
might seem to Roland, was, she felt sure, a very 
real and very sacred thing to the man himself. 

These careless creatures! Was nothing real, 
nothing sacred to them? Nothing, she thought, but 
their love for each other. That, she saw, meant 
everything to them both, though it did not pre¬ 
vent them from treating the love of others as a thing 
of nought, to be made a mock of as the spirit moved 
them. 

Tory, recovering from her momentary embarrass¬ 
ment, dismissed her father’s unwelcome suggestion 
airily. 

“Hubert knows that I look on him as an uncle, 
and it is in that—what’s the long word for uncle-ish, 
Nutkin?” 

“Avuncular.” 

“Thanks—Avuncular spirit he offers to lend us 
the horses. As I am perfectly willing to be his niece 
I don’t see why we should refuse his kind offer. We 
haven’t, as a matter of fact. Nutkin sent off an 
enthusiastic acceptance by the messenger, and we 
are to have our first ride tomorrow morning.” 

“Weather permitting,” put in Waring. 

“The weather must permit, Nutkin. You can’t 


GOLDEN DISHES 


275 


coddle yourself if you want to endure an English 
winter. As it is, I feel stifled for want of fresh air 
today.” 

“Come for a spin on my old bike,” suggested 
Brooke, speaking to Tory for the first time. 

The girl glanced at him hesitantly, frowned, then 
smiled, almost in spite of herself. 

“Conversation to be pursued on strictly conven¬ 
tional lines,” she stipulated. 

“As conventional as you like,” he agreed. “Can 
you lend us a cushion, Miss Packe? Oh, not that 

one-” as Tory caught up a delicately coloured 

silk one from the couch on which she sat—“some¬ 
thing dark.” 

“There are cretonne-covered ones on the settle in 
the hall,” Damaris said. “Take one of those.” 

“Any old thing will do,” Tory exclaimed. “I must 
make one for your pillion, Christopher, and em¬ 
broider it with my own initials. Woe betide you if 
you take any other girl out on it!” 

“I never do, as it happens,” murmured Brooke in 
her ear as they went out into the hall together. 
“You’re the only girl who has ever sat on that sacred 
pillion.” 

“What an honour!” mocked Tory. “But, indeed, 
if you are as odious to other girls as you are to me I 
can’t say I wonder.” 

“I’m never odious to you.” 

“Oh, Christopher! What about the very last time 
you were here?” 

“I wasn’t odious to you then. I was merely giv¬ 
ing you a little good advice.” 

“Well, I’m going to give you a little good advice 
in return,” said Tory, pulling on a woollen jumper, 



276 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“and that is, drop it! I don’t want any more advice 
until I ask for it.” 

“But,” demurred Brooke, “your conduct seems to 
me to ask for it every time we meet! However—it 
is Tax’ now, isn’t it?” 

“I suppose so,” said Tory reluctantly. “I can’t 
very well shout hymns of hate into your ear as we 
fly along. You’ll go as fast as you can, won’t you?” 

“Wherever the road is free.” 

“Oh, I knew you were a prig!” sighed Tory, as 
she settled herself comfortably on the pillion. “What 
stodgy, unadventurous things men are!” 

“Better a live stodge than a dead adventurer! 
Flying is what would suit you, my lady. There’s 
no speed limit in the air.” 

“I wish there wasn’t one on the earth.” 

“You wouldn’t be long on the earth in that case.” 

“Do stop arguing and let us go.” 

Brooke fumbled with his engine for a moment. 

“Honestly, is Sir Hubert Salmarais in love with 
you?” He looked at the girl as if he would read 
her soul. 

“How should I know?” retorted Tory, but she 
grew very red as she said it. 

Brooke reddened also as he turned away. He 
started the engine and they went off into the misty 
evening. Suddenly Tory shrilled in his ear: 

“What is it to you if he were?” 

“You mean Salmarais?” 

“Yes.” 

“Everything.” 

“Nonsense!” 

“It’s not nonsense. It’s a profound truth.” 

“No, Christopher.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


277 


“Yes, Victoria.” 

Tory wriggled on the pillion. “You won’t be old 
enough to talk like that for years and years,” she 
said. Brooke did not answer. He had slowed down 
for the brief conversation. Now he put on speed 
again. The motor-cycle shot forward. For the 
moment he felt as if he could conquer worlds. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 



ITH the mists of November Roland War- 
ing’s spirits damped sympathetically. 
The prospective rides quickly lost their 
charm when he found that to his un¬ 
accustomed frame they only brought 
stiffness, soreness and aching muscles. This, he 
decided, was too big a price to pay for a momen¬ 
tary exhilaration. 

“It’s no use, Hubert,” he said, one morning as 
the two rode side by side down one of the grass 
drives near Thornycross, watching Tory cantering 
on ahead of them. “I can’t stand it any longer. 
I am just one big ache from top to toe.” 

“That will wear off if you will only stick to it for 
a little while.” 

“It’s not worth it,” sighed Waring. “It’s the 
beginning of the end, but I don’t want to die any 
sooner than I need.” 

“You look very like dying!” said Salmarais dryly. 

“Cold-blooded fish!” groaned Waring at a sud¬ 
den movement of his mount. “You’ll have to be 
responsible for Tory on future occasions, for I’m 
not coming out riding again.” 

Salmarais’s pulses quickened. Here was an 
opportunity not to be lightly thrown away. 

“I should like nothing better,” he answered rather 
thickly. “Permanently, I mean.” 

Waring looked at him in astonishment. Damaris 
had been right in her wild surmise, then! 

“You’re not in earnest?” he queried quickly. 

278 











GOLDEN DISHES 


279 


“I never was more in earnest in my life.” Sin¬ 
cerity rang in his tone, and something more: a 
passion that jarred upon Waring. 

“But—but it’s too absurd,” he protested. 

Salmarais flushed darkly. “Why should it be 
absurd?” 

“The—the disparity, man!” 

“I admit that there is some disparity between us 
but it should make me all the better able to take 
care of her. Look here, Roland, don’t answer 
hastily. You must have seen this coming-” 

“I’ll be hanged if I did!” 

“She—she bowled me over the very first time I 
saw her, dancing in the twilight on the edge of the 
lily-pond. She danced right into my heart, Roland, 
and she’ll be there until I die.” 

Waring moved uncomfortably, his physical dis¬ 
tress momentarily forgotten in his mental disturb¬ 
ance. “But she’s only a child-” 

“She won’t always be a child. She’s nearer to 
being a woman than you think. She only needs a 
man to awaken her.” 

“Honestly, Hubert, do you think that you are the 
man?” Waring broke out. 

“Why not?” Salmarais countered, blinded by his 
passion. “If there is no one else, why shouldn’t 
I be the man? Of course I know I’m not good 
enough for her. Who is? But I worship the very 
ground she walks on, Roland. I would give her 
everything the heart of a girl could desire. I know 
perfectly well that neither you nor she cares a pin 
about worldly advantages, but I should rejoice in 
surrounding her with every care, every luxury. I 
shouldn’t dream of parting you either. You should 




280 


GOLDEN DISHES 


live with us, my mother would go to the Dower 
House. She is very anxious that I should marry.” 

“Mon Dieu! He has planned it all out!” thought 
Waring, as he seized the opportunity for another 
protest. 

“Lady Salmarais is not at all anxious that you 
should marry my Pixy. She disapproves of her as 
much as she has always disapproved of me, and 
that’s saying a good deal.” 

“What does it matter? A man marries to please 
himself and not his mother. I’m not asking you for 
anything yet, only to be given a chance. Don’t 
make fun of me to her, there’s a good chap. You 
and I have been friends for a long time now. Say a 
good word for me whenever you have an oppor¬ 
tunity. I know what you are to her: how much she 
thinks of what you say.” 

Waring looked at him with a curious sense of 
detachment. It seemed as if he had never really 
seen Hubert Salmarais before: as if he now peered 
through the familiar mastiff-mask to the soul of 
some stranger. 

♦ “You’re asking for more than I can give you,” he 
said at last. “When my girl wants to marry she 
must choose her man for herself, without any inter¬ 
ference from me. You must do your own wooing, 
Hubert, without any adventitious aid. If Pixy takes 
you, she shall have my best blessing, but honestly, 
I don’t think she will.” 

“You won’t do anything to prevent her?” asked 
Salmarais, hoarsely. 

“No. I promise you that.” 

“Thanks, Roly.” 

“Don’t you see, man, that if I were the adven- 


GOLDEN DISHES 


281 


turer your mother has always imagined me I should 
jump at your offer and use every means at my com¬ 
mand to persuade Pixy to marry you. You’re my 
oldest friend and the staunchest one I ever had, bar 
Damaris. As for the worldly advantages of which 
you make so little they would be dazzling to a pauper 
like me if money meant anything to me, which it 
doesn’t. But-” 

“You’d rather Tory didn’t marry me? Why?” 

“I don’t want her to marry any one at present. 
She’s far too young.” 

“Oh, if that’s all-” 

“But it isn’t—half.” Waring moved impatiently. 
How was he to make Hubert understand without 
hurting him abominably? “It’s like this,” he went 
on desperately. “Marriage is a difficult state. To 
make it possible it needs the closest rapport, the 
most infinite patience, the widest, completest under¬ 
standing between the two who essay it. All that, 
besides the great essential, love. Now, Hubert, as 
man to man, do you think that you and the Pixy 
could ever attain that between you?” 

“Why not?” 

“Mon Dien , c’est un imbecile!” muttered Waring 
rudely. Aloud he continued: “She’s young, raw, 
crude, self-opinionated—with the best heart in the 
world and the most loyal soul. I’ve spoilt her, I 
know, just as much as she has spoilt me, but we 
understand each other, which is everything. Could 
you ever understand her, Hubert?” 

“Why not?” said Salmarais again. 

Waring felt a wild desire to use the bludgeon. 

“For one reason because there’s the gulf of a 
generation between you.” 




282 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Does that prevent you from understanding her?” 

“I’m her father. She is part of me. We are of 
one blood. You belong neither to her age nor gener¬ 
ation. Your upbringing has been momentously dif¬ 
ferent. You and she could look at nothing from the 
same point of view. When Tory marries she will 
want a man of her own generation, her own outlook. 
A man who is part of the strange new world we live 
in. You and I are survivals, Hubert, from an era 
which is separated from the present day by a 
wider gulf than even that between the generations. 
You don’t like what I’m saying. I’m sorry, but it’s 
true. Profoundly true. I’m talking sense for once 
in my life.” 

“I don’t like it,” Salmarais said heavily. “And I 
don’t believe it either. I don’t think that there is 
any gulf which love such as mine could not bridge.” 

Waring looked at his old friend with pity for his 
blindness. Then he shrugged his shoulders as if to 
dismiss the subject once for all. 

“Have it your own way, then. You can’t say that 
I didn’t warn you.” 

“No. And you’ve promised not to interfere, re¬ 
member.” 

“Oh, I shan’t interfere.” Waring touched his 
horse’s flank with the riding-switch he carried. 

The bay shook his head and bounded forward. 
A moment later he put his foot into a rabbit-hole 
and stumbled, throwing his rider. Waring fell 
heavily, inexpertly. 

At that moment Tory, turning to see if the others 
were following, was suddenly aware of the accident. 
She galloped back to where Waring, now in a sitting 
posture, was looking round him with dazed eyes. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


283 


His face was white, his hair ruffled. There was a 
green smudge on one cheek where he had fallen. 

Tory sprang from her mare and rushed to his 
side, flinging her arms round him. 

“Dearest, what happened? Are you hurt?” 

“No, not really. Only my leg, I think.” 

“Sultan stumbled in a rabbit-hole and threw him,” 
explained Salmarais. 

“Why did you let him?” cried Tory, unreasonably. 

Waring essayed a shaky laugh. “Now, Pixy! 

. . . Give me a hand up, there’s a good chap.” 

Salmarais held out willing hands, but when War¬ 
ing essayed to rise he gave a groan and fell back on 
the damp moss, inert and white. His hair, the curve 
of his lashes looked black as ink against the pallor 
of his face. 

“Is he dead?” cried Tory aghast. “Hubert-” 

“No, no, he has only fainted.” Salmarais made a 
quick examination. “I think his leg is broken. One 
moment.” He dashed into the wood and Tory 
heard the breaking of sticks. 

In an instant he was back with an improvised 
splint. 

“I want to bind the fracture up before he comes 
to,” he said. “You go as quickly as you can to the 
nearest cottage—that will be Bonne’s at this side of 
the Lawn-” 

“Go yourself,” said Tory. “You don’t imagine 
I’m going to leave him?” 

“You’d be doing him far more good if you did,” 
returned Salmarais bluntly. 

“Should I? I’ll go, then. Tell me just what to 
do and I’ll do it.” 

“My brave little girl!” 




284 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Quickly and briefly Salmarais gave his directions. 
He was a different man when action forced him to 
take the initiative, prompt to grasp the salient points 
of a situation and to deal with it decisively. He felt 
now that movement was the best thing for Tory. 
The sight of her white frightened little face lin¬ 
gered with him as he bent over Waring, trying to 
restore him to consciousness with water from a 
brook which trickled near. 

At last the blue eyes opened. 

“Hallo, old chap, what are you doing here?” he 
asked feebly. 

“You’ve just had a spill.” 

“Ah, I remember. Any bones broken?” 

“Yes. Your right leg,” answered Salmarais. 
“Don’t move. I’ve just put it in a rough sort of 
splint.” 

“You’re a man of resource, Hubert,” Waring 
smiled faintly. “At any rate, this will put a stopper 
on my riding for some time.” 

“Deuced hard luck,” murmured Salmarais, who 
had looked on Waring’s distaste for riding as one 
of his jokes. 

“Not such hard luck as you think,” said Waring 
with a twinkle. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 


DIFFICULT time set in with Roland 
Waring’s broken leg. An enforced 
period of inaction is trying to any man, 
but this proved to be doubly irksome 
to one of his unfettered, will-o’-the- 
wisp-like temperament. 

He was a difficult patient, and the situation 
bristled with unseen pitfalls for his nurses. If he 
were contradicted or thwarted he sulked. If he 
were humoured he resented it. 

At first Tory had tried to keep Damaris out of 
the invalid’s room, but after a very short time she 
welcomed what she had been wont to call her intru¬ 
sions. In a way, the two drew nearer to each other 
in those trying days than they had done as yet. 
They had an interest in common, the pleasing of 
Roland Waring. 

Salmarais was a frequent visitor, but after his first 
few calls Waring begged of Tory not to leave him 
alone with him again. 

“Why not?” she enquired bluntly. 

“Because if you do he is sure to bring up dis¬ 
agreeable topics.” 

Tory laughed. “What disagreeable topics could 
poor old Hubert possibly bring up? His mother?” 

“No.” 

“What, then?” 

“Pixy, you’re as persistent as a mosquito!” 

“You shouldn’t rouse my curiosity unless you 
mean to satisfy it. You know that of old, Nutkin.” 

285 













286 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“I ought to,” he groaned. 

“What is it, then?” 

“You’re not supposed to know.” 

“Why not? Is it anything about me?” 

“You’ve guessed. I haven’t told you, have I?” 

“Certainly not. But what is it? Why should it 
be disagreeable to you to talk about me?” Tory, all 
excitement, drew her favourite stool up to the bed¬ 
side and clasped her hands round her knees. 

Waring moved on his pillow. “Can’t you hazard 
another guess?” 

His eyes were fixed quizzically on the glowing 
face. To his surprise it reddened beneath his gaze. 
A new expression suddenly gleamed in Tory’s eyes. 
She dropped her lids to hide it. 

“I’m not really good at guessing,” she answered, 
poking the nearest corner of the eider-down quilt 
with one brown finger. 

Waring smiled. “I think you are.” 

She lifted her eyes at that. “Am I?” 

“Has Hubert been making love to you, Pixy?” 

“I didn’t know it was making love then.” 

“Do you know now?” 

“I—I suppose so.” 

“How?” 

“Oh—because-” She stopped and flushed, 

still angry at the thought of that moment on the 
moor. 

“Do you want him to do it again?” probed 
Waring. 

She shook her head, and looked straight at him. 

“You know I don’t, Nutkin.” 

“That’s flat,” said Waring with satisfaction. 

“Did he tell you about it?” 



GOLDEN DISHES 287 

“He-” Waring paused, feeling that he was 

not being quite fair to poor Hubert. 

“When was it?” Tory pursued. 

“Just before my accident.” 

“And you were trying to hurry away from the 
idea—oh, stupid, darling owl!” Tory caught her 
father’s hand and put it to her cheek. “Surely you 
didn’t think for an instant-” 

“I told him that it was no use.” 

“I’m glad you did.” 

“But it’s a persistent mastiff, hedge-pigling.” 

Tory looked at him in quick alarm. 

“You mean that he may—may tackle me?” 

“I am quite certain that he will.” 

“Oh, Nutkin!” 

“There’s no chance for him, then?” 

“Nutkin, don’t be absurd!” 

“Poor Hubert!” Waring sighed, but there was a 
tinge of malicious satisfaction in his tone. “You’ll 
be kind to him, Pixy. Remember, he would give 
you Thornycross for your washpot and Shotton 
Court for your footstool.” 

“I don’t want either. I’d far rather have Villino 
Gobbo and the adorable Mergozzo—with you.” 

“And no one else?” queried Waring. 

Tory hesitated. “Well, we might have Mr. Tern- 
pus for an occasional visit, mightn’t we?” 

Waring gave an exclamation of pleasure. 

“Benissimo! A brain-wave, my Pixy-thing. I’ll 
suffer this dullness no longer. I’ll get Damaris to 
write and invite Tempest down here. He promised 
to come again. Now is the time!” 

“Why Damaris? Couldn’t I write to him?” 

“Certainly not. Why, you couldn’t even spell his 




288 


GOLDEN DISHES 


name properly. Besides, it’s Damaris’s house. It 
is for her to invite her guests, not you.” 

“I forgot. Oh, Nutkin, I hate not being in our 
own house. Can’t we go back to Villino Gobbo?” 

“Not yet, ungrateful pigling. It would be most 
unfair to poor Damaris to desert her now after all 
she has done for us.” 

“I suppose so,” sighed Tory. “But still-” 

Before she could finish her sentence the door 
opened gently and Damaris entered. From the 
sudden hush that ensued she felt that they had been 
speaking of her. Her colour deepened. In spite of 
the new understanding between her and Tory she 
could not feel quite certain that the girl had been 
speaking kindly of her. She came over to the 
bedside. 

“Christopher Brooke is here. He wants to know 
if you would like to go for a ride, Tory.” 

Tory hesitated and looked at her father. 

“Off with you, Pixy. The fresh air will do you 
good.” 

“Bring him back to tea, Tory,” said Damaris. 
“We might have it up here, if it would amuse you, 
Roland.” 

“It wouldn’t amuse me at all,” answered Roland 
ungratefully. 

“We’ll have it downstairs, then.” 

“Just as you like, of course.” 

Tory ran back into the room an instant later in 
a yellow woollen coat and cap. 

“Be a good boy while I’m away,” she said gaily, 
as she kissed a martyred parent’s forehead. “I 
shan’t be long.” 

She was gone, taking a sense of vitality with her. 



GOLDEN DISHES 


289 


Damaris sat down on the stool near the bedside. 

“Youth to youth/’ she smiled. “Well, it’s only 
natural.” 

“Brooke is crude, raw, self-opinionated,” cried 
Waring petulantly, forgetting that he had applied 
almost similar terms to his daughter when speaking 
of her to Salmarais. “A bull in a china-shop.” 

“Christopher Brooke is a fine boy. He will be a 
splendid man,” said Damaris warmly. 

“I can’t stand his eyelashes.” 

“That’s very important, of course,” Damaris 
smiled tolerantly. . . . What a baby Roland was 
sometimes! 

“Look here, Damaris, you may think me a cranky 
fool, but I’ve had a lot to worry me lately.” 

At this unexpected appeal Damaris was all sym¬ 
pathy. She leaned towards her brother. 

“Have you, dear? Why didn’t you tell me? Is 
there any way in which I can help you?” 

“Oh, money isn’t everything,” Waring answered 
impatiently. He did not see her wince. He con¬ 
tinued to pour out his grievance. “You were right 
and I was wrong. Hubert Salmarais has taken it 
into his old wooden head to fall in love with Pixy. 
He wants me to stand by him and plead his cause, 
which I’ve flatly refused to do. Pixy wouldn’t look 
at him, of course, but I’m afraid he won’t believe 
that until she tells him so herself. I said all I 
could but it was no use. He was always the 
same. Once he got an idea into his obstinate head 
nothing could get it out again. I’m fond of the 
old chap, but this—this delusion of his worries me. 
Whenever I am left alone with him he bombards me 
with questions about Pixy. Even when he doesn’t 


290 


GOLDEN DISHES 


ask he looks them, and that’s just as bad. I won’t 
be left alone with him again, Damaris. You must 
see to that.” 

“Very well, dear. Don’t excite yourself about it.” 

“The sooner Pixy gives him ‘the happy dispatch’ 
the better. Then he won’t come bothering me any 
more.” 

“Oh, Roland, he’s so faithful to you. Don’t be 
unkind to him.” 

“I don’t want him to be faithful to me,” cried 
Waring ungratefully. “He bores me to tears. He’s 
a monomaniac, and I am utterly out of sympathy 
with his mania. It was idiotic of him to go and 
fall in love with Pixy.” 

“But he couldn’t help it. One can’t love and 
unlove to order.” With all her heart Damaris 
wished that she could, as she stopped abruptly. 

“She danced into his heart the first night he saw 
her, he said. He was quite poetic, poor old mastiff! 
... I wonder if one could paint that?” mused 
Waring. “From the subjective point of view not 
the objective, I mean.” 

“Don’t laugh at him, Roland. It’s all very real to 
him. Don’t make him suffer any more than he 
must. He’s got to, in any case. Do try not to 
make it harder.” 

“Why, Damaris!” Roland looked at his sister’s 
disturbed face with surprise. “One would almost 
think that you cared-” 

“Don’t, Roland.” 

“It’s not true? You don’t care for Hubert?” 

“Oh, no, no. How could you think it? I am 
only sorry for him—sorry for anybody who has got 
to suffer as he must.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


291 


“Why, Damaris? What do you know about it? 
What have you suffered in your easy sheltered life?” 

“My easy sheltered life!” Damaris repeated in a 
strange tone. She paused on the edge of speech, 
then went on quietly. “There are adventures, suf¬ 
ferings of the spirit, even in an ‘easy sheltered life’ 
like mine.” 

“Oh, that?” returned Waring uncomfortably. He 
did not want to talk of any abstract adventures but 
his own. For the moment the concrete fact of 
Salmarais’s unwelcome suit absorbed all his atten¬ 
tion. He dismissed the poignancy of Damaris’s out¬ 
cry as the result of some secret adoration for the 
curate in her Streatham days. Other people’s un¬ 
acknowledged love-affairs had no concern for him 
just then. 

“That’s all over and done with now, little sister, 
isn’t it?” 

“I suppose so,” answered Damaris dully. 

“You’re rich enough to go where you wish, do 
what you like. You must travel, Damaris, see the 
world. Nothing like seeing the world to rid one¬ 
self of old-maidish grooviness.” 

“Am I suffering from that? ... I didn’t know.” 

“Don’t be absurd, dear. You’ve lived in a band- 
box all your life until now. That doesn’t make for 
breadth of outlook.” 

“No,” said Damaris, humbly, wondering how she 
had failed him this time. 

“I don’t think it’s ingrained in you, though,” con¬ 
ceded Waring. “It’s probably as superficial as dust 
which the winds of travel will quickly blow away.” 

“I should like to use Italy as my first duster,” 
said Damaris. 


292 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Quite wrong. You’ve got to prepare for Italy. 
Get me a pencil and some paper. We’ll draw out 
a regular itinerary. . . . No, what’s the use? I’m 
tied by the leg here for heaven knows how long.” 

“But-” 

“But me no buts!” cried Waring irritably. “I’ll 
tell you what you can do, though, and that’s write 
to Tempest and ask him to come down here for a 
bit to cheer me up.” 

“Write to Ludlow Tempest?” The sudden thrust 
staggered Damaris, voicing the name which filled her 
thoughts as it did. 

“Yes. Why not? It was a brain-wave of Pixy’s. 
Tell him to cleanse his soul from its bondage to 
filthy lucre and come and entertain an unfortunate 
cripple even for a week-end.” 

“Why don’t you write yourself, Roland?” Feebly 
she tried to salve her pride. 

“It’s your house.” 

“But you know that you can ask any guest you 
wish to it.” 

“And you know how I hate writing letters. If 
only Pixy could spell I’d ask her to do it.” 

For a moment longer Damaris hesitated, urged by 
an impulse to tell Roland the whole story. Yet 
what would be the use? Why should she bare her 
poor little secret to any one’s eyes? If Roland 
knew Tory would know also, and she felt that she 
could not bear that. She checked the desire for 
confidence and said quietly: 

“You needn’t do that. I’ll write to him by to¬ 
night’s post.” 

“Have you got his address?” 

“The London Weekly would surely find him.” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


293 


“I suppose so.” Suddenly Waring laughed. “Silly 
old ostrich, do you think I don’t know why you are 
loth to ask Tempest down here?” 

Damaris’s heart leaped. She turned away to hide 
the colour that rushed furiously to her face, and 
bent to put some logs on the fire. 

“What wonderful discovery do you think you’ve 
made, Roland?” she asked in as normal a tone as 
she could achieve. 

“You don’t want to let the poor chap come within 
reach of my Pixy’s wiles.” 

Damaris laughed unsteadily as she straightened 
herself. “As for that, I think Ludlow Tempest is 
quite capable of taking care of himself.” 

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Waring, musingly. 
“I think he likes my pigling more than a little, and 
she-” 

“Yes. She-? Go on.” Damaris’s breath 

came quickly. 

“She—is different . . . Oh, I don’t know, but I 
have never seen her with any other man as she is 
with Tempest.” 

“No?” 

“No. I have been wondering—seriously—if after 
all, Tempest might not be the man for her.” 

“But he is so much older—the same age as I am 
—thirty-two,” breathed Damaris quickly. 

“That’s all to the good. He has neither the 
elderliness of Hubert nor the crudity of young 
Brooke. He could manage her and yet be young 
enough to share her pleasures.” 

“Do you desire this marriage, Roland?” asked 
Damaris, rather low. 

“I don’t want the child to marry at all, but if it 




294 


GOLDEN DISHES 


has to be I’d as soon have Tempest for a son-in-law 
as any man I know. However, it’s for Pixy her¬ 
self to decide. I won’t have her coerced in any 
way.” 

“I am not in the least likely to coerce her,” 
Damaris returned. “Nor, unless I am much mis¬ 
taken, is she likely to let herself be coerced.” 

Even as she spoke, little memories of words, looks, 
gestures came about her like a cloud of gnats to 
sting and torment her. Ludlow . . . and Tory. . . . 

“I’d better write that letter now lest I should for¬ 
get it,” she said, turning to leave the room. 

“Ask him to come as soon as he can.” 

“Very well.” 

“Would you like him as a nephew, Damaris?” 

“Not at all.” The words shot out of their own 
accord. 

“Why not?” 

Damaris swiftly sought for an answer that should 
have some element of truth in it, the while her whole 
soul clamoured against the outrage. At last she 
managed: 

“It would make me feel too old.” 

“He needn’t call you aunt,” mocked Waring. 

“He certainly wouldn’t call you papa,” said Dam¬ 
aris, with a bitter lightness. 

She reached the door and groped for the handle 
which she could not see. Then she turned and faced 
Roland desperately, jerking out the difficult words. 

“If—this thing—is to come—let’s be decent about 
it. Don’t let us tarnish or—or cheapen it. It’s not 
fair to either Tory or—or Ludlow.” 

She was gone, closing the door sharply behind 
her. 


GOLDEN DISHES 295 

Roland Waring lay back on his pillows, with 
an amused smile. 

“Poor old Damaris! I wonder why the curate 
didn’t reciprocate. She looked really pretty as she 
stood at the door. Young and pretty, in spite of her 
grey locks. I shouldn’t wonder if, after a while, 
Hubert turned to her for consolation. Hearts are 
often caught on the rebound, and it would be an 
eminently suitable match. But why don’t they let 
my Pixy alone? I don’t want her to marry. Con¬ 
found them all, why can’t they leave us in peace to 
be happy in our own simple way? . . . England, my 
England!” He laughed ironically as he clasped 
his hands behind his head and quoted—“ ‘And 
thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, 
A gauntlet with a gift in it! . . .’ The child’s 
instinct was truer than mine. . . . England, my 
England! . . . It’s always a mistake to come back! 
Even the ghosts know that. That’s why there are 
so few real hauntings. . . .Mon Dieu, I wonder if 
I could paint that!” 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 


EAR LUDLOW: Roland has broken his 
leg and is bored to tears. He asks me 
to write and beg of you to come down 
to Paradell and cheer him up, even if 
only for a week-end. Hoping to see 
you on Saturday by any train that suits you, 
“Believe me, sincerely yours, 

“Damaris Packe.” 



“Bald as it is, it will have to do,” Damaris 
decided. “How many attempts have I torn up 
already? Six, I think. Death-warrants are always 
brief and telegraphic, I imagine. This is the war¬ 
rant for the final execution of all my hopes. Yes. 
I’d better face it. . . . The bottom dropped out of 
his world when he found that Tory had gone from 
Villino Gobbo. . . . What could that mean but one 
thing? He said himself that hearts were often 
caught on the rebound. I thought then that it was 
a jibe at poor Hubert, but perhaps—perhaps he 
was only trying to tell me. ... I knew it all along, 
I think. But I tried to pretend that I didn’t. Let’s 
have an end to pretences, or what Roland called 
old-maidish grooviness. I let Ludlow go and now he 
doesn’t want to come back. I gave him up for— 
for their sakes, and now they’ve got him as well as 
everything else! It’s funny, really funny when you 
come to analyze it.” 

The grim humour of it overcame her so much that 
she put her head down on her hands in dry-eyed 
296 












GOLDEN DISHES 297 

misery. Her eyeballs burned for the tears that 
would not come. 

A fire of logs crackled cheerily behind her. 
Around her were the comforts of the beautiful home 
she had made for herself, but in that bitter moment 
Paradell was an empty shell, her life a void. 

She knew that later she would find compensations, 
that travel, that friendship, the chance of doing 
kindnesses would each bring solace to her loneliness: 
but for the moment such thoughts were but as 
“Sounding brass or a clanging cymbal” echoing 
meaningless in her ears. She sat there by the desk, 
her face still hidden, penetrated by an almost 
physical pain, trying to gather what resources she 
had to meet the inevitable, praying for strength to 
endure what she had still to face. 

Suddenly inaction became unendurable. An idea 
came to her. As a symbol of hope renounced she 
would have the library put in order at once. It 
would be her haven, her refuge. She could escape 
there during Ludlow’s visit, and leave the rest of the 
house to him and the Warings. It should be her 
own room, sacred, inviolable. There she could en¬ 
trench herself against sights and sounds which she 
knew would rack her heart: there she could be alone 
to gather strength for the next inevitable assault 
on her courage. 

She would work hard, tire herself out, give her¬ 
self no time for thought. She would begin at once. 

She rang the bell which summoned Benson and 
told her what she wanted done. It should not take 
long to get the room in order. The biggest piece of 
work would be the unpacking and arranging of the 
books. That she would see to herself. 


298 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Damaris had recaptured something of her former 
poise when she heard the sound of approaching 
footsteps on the gravel drive. She went to the 
window and looked out. 

It was Hubert Salmarais. 

He was coming to see Roland and she had prom¬ 
ised her brother that he should not be left alone with 
the aspiring lover again. The net closed in upon her 
once more, as she went out into the hall whose door 
stood hospitably open. 

Salmarais was already mounting the steps. His 
face brightened at sight of her. 

“I needn’t be conventional and ask if you’re at 
home,” he said. “I know Roland is, poor chap! I 
thought I’d stroll over and have a chat with him. 
He must find the days long, lying there. I brought 
over the proofs of an article on ‘Lamellicorns’ which 
I’ve written for the Naturalist’s Review , hoping it 
might amuse him.” 

“That was very good of you,” said Damaris with 
a tender smile at Hubert’s idea of amusing Roland. 
“He does find the days very long. I’ve just written 
to Mr. Tempest asking him to run down for the 
week-end if possible.” 

Salmarais’s face darkened slightly. “Have you? 
He finds Tempest amusing, then?” 

“He seems to. It was his own suggestion to invite 
him here.” 

“Not—not Tory’s?” 

Damaris, remembering that Roland had spoken 
of Tory’s brain-wave, evaded direct answer. 

“Tory has gone for a run on Christopher Brooke’s 
motor-cycle. I expect them back at any moment 
now.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


299 


They turned to listen, and heard the unmistakable 
sound of the motor-cycle’s noisy approach. Silence 
fell between them until Brooke rounded the bend 
of the avenue and drew up at the foot of the steps. 

Tory jumped off the pillion, cheeks glowing, eyes 
sparkling, and ran up the steps, stiffening slightly at 
sight of Salmarais. 

“You here?” she said coolly. “Have you just 
arrived or are you going?” 

“I’ve just arrived,” answered Salmarais, stung to 
a sudden resolution by this alarming influx of men 
upon the solitudes of Paraded. “I’m not going until 
I’ve seen Roland and you.” 

“You can see us both together and save time,” 
said Tory, shrinking from the thought of a tete-a- 
tete. 

“I don’t want to save time. I’ve got all the time 
there is. Come and show me the lily-pond. It’s 
sheltered down there.” He came closer and spoke 
for her ear alone, ignoring the other two. 

“I don’t want to show you the lily-pond. There’s 
nothing to see there.” 

“Take me anywhere else you like, then. I must 
have a word with you in private.” 

“Oh, very well,” answered Tory crossly. “Come 
along to the morning-room. No one will disturb us 
there. You can go up and talk to Nutkin, Chris. 
I shan’t be long.” 

She crimsoned in response to Brooke’s eloquent 
glance, and led the way along the corridor with a 
defiant swing of her lithe young body and the feeling 
of a condemned criminal in her heart. 

Had not Salmarais been blinded by a rush of jeal¬ 
ous apprehension at the sight of Brooke and the 


300 


GOLDEN DISHES 


prospect of Tempest’s imminence, he must have 
known that no moment could have been less propi¬ 
tious to his hopes than the present: but fear and a 
dogged determination spurred him to action. He 
felt that he must know where he stood, in spite of 
Roland’s warning: and that Tory should know it 
too. It suddenly became imperative that things 
should be on a definite footing between them. He 
held the door open for Tory and she marched into 
the morning-room with her head erect and her 
cheeks still burning. Her heart was equally hot 
against him for his presumption. Softness, pity had 
no place in it now. 

As he closed the door behind them she turned and 
faced him. 

“Well, what do you want me for?” she demanded 
defiantly. “Tell me quickly, please, because I want 
to go up to Nutkin.” 

“I can’t tell you quickly.” He had never longed 
more ardently for eloquence than now at sight of 
Tory’s angry face. 

“Tell me slowly, then. But tell me and get it 
over.” 

Suddenly Salmarais found words. ... He was a 
man and she was a girl. It was for him to master 
her. What he had to say needed no embroidery if 
only he had made her care a little. Surely he 
had. ... 

He came a step forward and held out his big 
brown hands. 

“I love you. I want you to marry me. Will 
you?” 

Tory gasped at the suddenness of the avowal. 
Some unknown emotion caught her by the throat. 


GOLDEN DISHES 


301 


She wanted to lash out at him, to flick him with 
her tongue, but his very evident sincerity held her 
at bay. 

“No,” she gulped, with a childish sting of tears 
in her eyes. She put her hands behind her back. 

“Don’t answer me now. Think it over. The 
idea is new to you, perhaps startling. I don’t want 
to hurry you. Take your own time. I’ll wait as 
long as you like if you’ll only give me hope.” 

“I—I can’t.” 

“Why not? I’m older than you, I know, and not 
a millionth part good enough for you. No man is, 
for the matter of that. But no one in the world 
could care for you more than I do. Look here, child, 
all that I have is yours. I—I’ve never really cared 
before. I—I haven’t frittered away my. power of 
loving as some men do. I—I’ve kept it all for you.” 

“But I don’t want it,” cried Tory childishly. 

“You say that now, but you don’t know. Think 
it over. Don’t imagine that I’d want to part you 
from Roland. It would be my greatest joy to look 
after you both. He means almost as much to me as 
you do. Don’t you know that?” 

No plea could have touched Tory more surely 
had she had a spark of feeling for the big awkward 
man who laid all that he had at her feet. But it 
was not in his power to light that divine spark in her 
wayward heart. She was conscious only of the most 
acute discomfort. She could see no generosity in 
this unwanted gift so urgently pressed upon her. 
She only longed to get away from his unwelcome 
presence. 

Her eyes wandered round the room like those of 
a trapped animal, seeking escape and finding none. 


302 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“No one could part Nutkin and me, no matter 
how they wanted to,” she muttered. 

“I know that, but I shouldn’t want to,” he urged, 
drawing nearer and laying a possessive hand on her 
shoulder. 

She jerked away, her face flaming. 

“You know I hate being touched,” she cried. 

“Sorry. I forgot. I shan’t touch you again until 
you give me leave.” He misread the portent, mis¬ 
taking physical distaste for virginal shyness. 

“I’ll never give you leave. Never!” Tory said 
vehemently. “No, don’t ask me to wait. It’s no 
use. I’d never want to marry you if I waited a 
hundred years.” 

“You are very young. You can’t be sure.” 

“I’m not too young to know that. I am perfectly 
sure. Listen, Hubert, I don’t want to hurt you. I 
suppose I ought to be grateful to you for all you 
offer, but I’m not. I’m furious with you. Doesn’t 
that show you?” Her words tumbled out incoher¬ 
ently. “I hate you to touch me. It seems an 
outrage. Doesn’t that make you see that I could 
never bring myself to marry you? You’re years too 
old for me. We don’t even talk the same language. 
We’d never understand each other, never come 
within miles of one another.” 

“I thought we got on very well together,” said 
Salmarais dully. 

“Superficially, perhaps, as an old friend of Nut- 
kin’s and a sort of uncle of mine, but anything closer 
—no, no, no! ” She covered her face with her hands. 

Salmarais stood silent for a moment. 

“Then there’s no hope?” 

“Not a glimmer.” 


GOLDEN DISHES 


303 


“Is there—any one else?” 

Tory dropped her hands to look at him. “What 
do you mean?” 

“Another man? Brooke? Tempest?” 

“I don’t want to marry any one,” Tory declared 
hotly. “I only want to be let alone to enjoy myself 
with Nutkin. We always got on splendidly until 
you—silly people came bothering.” 

Salmarais stiffened where he stood. “I’m sorry. 
I shan’t bother you any more. You must forgive 
my clumsy stupidity.” He turned towards the door, 
moving in a dazed way as if he did not quite see 
where it was. 

Tory sprang after him and caught him by the 
arm. 

“Now I’ve hurt you, and I didn’t mean to. I’m 
very fond of you really, mon vieux. If only—but 
there! . . . Do let us part friends. . . . Would you 
—would you like me to kiss you?” 

Salmarais glared at the childish face turned up to 
his. Was there anywhere else in the world such a 
mixture of self-confidence and naiveti? 

“No,” he rapped out bluntly. 

Her look of relief added a final stab to his wound. 

“You’re old enough to know better than that,” 
he went on. “Stones for bread were never con¬ 
sidered a fair exchange. . . . Grow up as quickly 
as you can, Tory, for the sake of all the other poor 
devils you’ll torment.” 

He was gone, leaving her standing there breath¬ 
less and bewildered. 

“He needn’t have said that,” she thought. “I 
don’t want to torment any one. Oh, why, why was 
he so stupid as to fall in love with me? It was 


304 


GOLDEN DISHES 


the most ridiculous thing he could have done. I 
hated him and I pitied him and I was angry with 
him all at once. . . . Wasn’t he tiresome? . . . 
Well, one good thing about it is that he won’t bother 
Nutkin any more. I must run up and tell him so.” 

The thought of her father was as a sponge with 
which to wipe away all troublesome ideas. He was 
still paramount in her life, all other men beside 
him seeming like shadows. 

Pity for poor Hubert Salmarais and his irksome 
devotion vanished from her mind as she ran swiftly 
up the stairs to Waring’s room to tell him the good 
news that he need in future fear neither the words 
nor the looks of that unwelcome suitor. 


CHAPTER THIRTY 



OU’VE got a smudge on your cheek, 
Damaris. What have you been doing?” 
asked Roland idly. 

“Dusting books.” 

“Why didn’t you let the maids do 

that for you?” 

“They were busy otherwise.” 

“Doing what?” He was not really curious, but 
when one is in bed one snatches at the veriest 
straw of interest, and Damaris’s slight taciturnity 
piqued him. 

Absurd as she knew it to be Damaris could not 
help feeling faintly guilty as she answered: 

“Getting the library into order.” 

“Ah, for Tempest?” said Roland, amused. 

“No, for myself.” Damaris reddened. 

Roland looked wonderingly at her. “What absurd 
fancy have you for that room?” 

“Just an absurd fancy. We’ll leave it at that. 
Surely it is not unreasonable to set aside one room 
in this big house for my own special use?” 

“Not at all. But why that particular room?” 

“Why not?” asked Damaris, rising. 

Waring could not very well say because he desired 
it for himself. Instead he gave way to a petulant 
generality. 

“Women are full of whims.” 

“We’re poor creatures altogether.” 

“I shouldn’t go so far as that. . . . Oughtn’t 
Tempest to be here by this?” 

305 











306 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Damaris glanced at her watch. “Scarcely yet, 
unless Tory has succeeded once more in making 
Briggs exceed the speed limit.” She paused for a 
moment, then continued: “I’ve just had a note from 
Hubert Salmarais.” 

Waring’s look said “Rebound”; while he asked: 

“What did he write to you about?” 

“Merely to say that he was going up to town for 
a few days to see about the publication of his book 
and that he hoped to come over to Paradell on his 
return.” 

Silence fell. The logs crackled and spurted. 
Tory’s Sealyham puppy, dreaming on the rug before 
the fire, twitched and snorted in his sleep. 

“Poor old beggar!” said Waring at last. “But it 
was absurd of him. Now, wasn’t it, Damaris?” 

“I suppose so,” answered Damaris, slowly, 
stretching her hands to the blaze. Then she added 
with a bitterness unusual to her, “Why should the 
fact of unrequited love always appear so comical to 
the onlooker? Every one is full of sympathy for 
the happy lover, who does not need it in the least, 
while the unfortunate one only gets jeered at for 
his pains. It doesn’t seem fair.” 

“Mon Dieu , I forgot the curate!” thought Roland. 
“Comme je suis imbecile!” Aloud he said: “The 
way of the world, my dear. Unrequited love has 
always been the jest of the groundlings and the 
inspiration of the poets. ... Do I hear the car 
coming? You really ought to wash your face before 
Tempest arrives.” 

“I suppose I ought,” answered Damaris apatheti¬ 
cally. 

She went slowly along the corridor to her own 


GOLDEN DISHES 


307 


room, feeling tired and dispirited. Conflicting emo¬ 
tions swayed her. One part of her shrank from the 
thought of seeing Ludlow Tempest again so soon, 
while some inner pulse beat madly at the prospect. 

“I must change quickly/’ she thought. “But I’m 
not going to dress up for him. What’s the use?” 
Then, as she caught sight of her tired, smudged 
face in the glass, she shook her fist at herself. “Silly 
fool, where’s your pride? Let him see what he has 
thrown away.” 

Ignoble or not, the thought spurred her. As she 
turned from the mirror towards her wardrobe she 
saw that Benson had laid out her latest acquisition 
on her bed, a silver-grey velvet tea-gown whose 
neck and sleeves were edged with fur. She had 
not worn it as yet. It had only arrived that morn¬ 
ing. She touched the soft fabric with a sense of 
pleasure. 

Hastily she washed away the disfiguring dust, 
brushed her hair until its silvery waves gleamed, 
and slipped into the graceful gown which only 
needed a moment’s adjustment. 

A transformed being looked back at her out 
of the mirror, so different a vision from the tired, 
dusty creature who had met her eyes forlornly a 
few minutes earlier, that she almost laughed aloud 
at the contrast. 

“The body is more easily dressed than the soul, 
they say, but to clothe the body beautifully may 
sometimes revive the soul of a woman,” she thought. 
“I am ready to face Ludlow now.” 

The triumphal hoot of an approaching motor- 
horn broke across her musings, quickening her 
heart-beats. 


308 


GOLDEN DISHES 


She hurried downstairs, swayed by the old hos¬ 
pitable instinct to meet the coming guest at her 
threshold. 

A big log fire roared in the open grate of the pan¬ 
elled hall, presaging the welcome that waited within 
for the chilly traveller. Outside the November wind 
might hurl its ineffectual spears at every window, 
but within was warmth and comfort, the gleam of 
copper, the cheery wink of brass, the autumn scent 
and glow of chrysanthemums, yellow, bronze and 
gold, in bowls and jars of shining green and blue. 

Never had Ludlow Tempest been conscious of 
such a sense of home-coming as when he stepped 
from the murky evening into the welcoming hall at 
Paradell. His welcome had begun on the platform 
at Brockenhurst, he felt, when Tory had flung her¬ 
self upon him and borne him off in triumph to the 
waiting car. 

The gracious figure in the shimmering gown who 
came slowly forward at his approach, added the last 
touch of beauty to the scene, but also the first touch 
of frost. 

“It was very good of you to come to these wilds 
to cheer our invalid,” said Damaris conventionally. 

“It was very good of you to ask me,” returned 
Tempest, longing to shake her for her cold civility. 

. . . How different was this cool greeting from the 
warmth of Tory’s onslaught. 

He turned with relief to the girl, whose hand was 
thrust through his arm. Money had not spoilt her, 
at any rate. She was just the same natural creature 
as the Signorina Vittoria had been. 

“My heart aches to think of the Signor Varingo 
being tied by the leg,” he said. “No more can-cans 


GOLDEN DISHES 


309 


to shock Lady Salmarais. By the way, I saw Sir 
Hubert on the platform at Southampton. How did 
he manage to tear himself away from the Forest?” 

Tempest was instantly aware of the uncomfort¬ 
able quality of the brief silence which followed. He 
had barely sensed it when Damaris answered: 

“He had to go up to London to see about his 
book.” 

“He’s gone, then?” Tory breathed a great sigh 
of relief. Then in answer to Tempest’s look she 
plunged into a hurried ungrateful explanation. 
“Poor Hubert! I’m glad he’ll be away while you’re 
here. He had grown so boring, he quite got on 
Nutkin’s nerves. Now we’ll have you all to our¬ 
selves, thank goodness. Come up and see Nutkin 
before tea. He won’t want to lose a minute of you.” 

“The Signorina Vittoria is pleased to be flatter¬ 
ing,” smiled Tempest. 

“Not at all,” cried Tory. “I pride myself on 
speaking the truth whenever it’s possible.” She 
flushed suddenly at the remembrance of the dis¬ 
tasteful truths she had been obliged to voice to 
Hubert Salmarais a few days ago. Tempest took 
the blush to himself and smiled again at her. 

Damaris turned away to the fire. ... It had 
begun, then. She would have need of all her 
armour. 

“Don’t be too long,” she said over her shoulder. 
“Tea will be ready in a few minutes.” 

“Couldn’t we have it in Nutkin’s room?” 

“No. He said he would hate it the other day 
when I suggested it.” 

“But that was before Mr. Tempus came.” 

“If he wishes he can have a tea-party there to- 


310 


GOLDEN DISHES 


morrow. Everything is ready in the drawing-room 
now.” Damaris spoke with finality. 

“It wouldn’t take two minutes to take up the 
things,” grumbled Tory, as she led the way upstairs. 
“But what can you expect from an old maid? Dam¬ 
aris is always considering the servants. She won’t 
ask them to do this, that, or the other thing for 
fear of giving them too much to do.” 

“A good man is merciful to his beast,” quoted 
Tempest. 

“I don’t see the fun of keeping a dog and barking 
yourself,” retorted Tory. 

Her face changed as she opened the door of her 
father’s room and peeped in. 

“Here we are, Nutkin! Once again I’ve brought 
you a tame journalist for your supper. Gabble him 
up, body and bones, but just leave a tiny morsel for 
me!” 

Downstairs Damaris retreated into her new fast¬ 
ness and shut the door on the rest of her world for 
a breathless moment. 

With the coming of Tempest all her old antago¬ 
nism against Tory had sprung into life again. 

What charm, what spell did this careless, uncon¬ 
ventional, inconsiderate girl wield that drew these 
men to her? Hubert Salmarais, Christopher Brooke, 
Ludlow Tempest. . . . She had them all in her 
net. Yes, even Ludlow, who had been her own one 
lover. 

How changed, how cold he was! All his smiles, 
all his friendly looks were for Tory. His whole 
face altered when he turned to her. How long 
would she have to wait before she knew that she 
was definitely, tangibly supplanted? She felt that 


GOLDEN DISHES 311 

her strength was not equal to any very prolonged 
strain. 

Yet what was she to do? What way of escape 
lay open to her? What was there for her but 
inaction and endurance? . . . Oh, what a fool, 
what an utter fool she had been! 

She glanced round the dusk of the library. A 
man’s room, true, but she felt that she could not 
yet endure any feminine fripperies there. The fire¬ 
light flickered on the dim colours of the books, 
striking an answering glitter here and there from 
their gilding. What better furnishing, what better 
company did she need? 

Already she felt that the brief withdrawal had 
strengthened her. She went back to the drawing¬ 
room to find it still untenanted save by a kettle sing¬ 
ing to the blue flame beneath it. She made the tea 
and rang for Benson. 

“Has Mr. Waring’s tea been sent upstairs?” 

“Yes, miss. I took it up myself.” 

“Did you tell Miss Tory-” 

“Yes, miss. I think she’s coming down now.” 

A rushing of feet on the stairs, an excited: 

“Give me your hand and we’ll jump the last four 
steps together.” 

A thud, an outburst of laughter, and two breath¬ 
less people entered the drawing-room. 

Damaris felt old, cold, remote, as she busied her¬ 
self with the teapot. 



CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 


EMPEST’S visit was a wonderful stimu¬ 
lus to Roland Waring. He moped so 
visibly at the prospect of his departure 
that Damaris was obliged to urge him 
to prolong his stay. 

Tempest looked sharply at her as she added her 
entreaties to Roland’s, but could find nothing per¬ 
sonal in her invitation. 

She seemed as calm, as unmoved as ever: just as 
if what had once been between them had been com¬ 
pletely blotted out of her remembrance. The knowl¬ 
edge rankled even though he was not at all sure that 
he wished it otherwise. The old barriers, her money 
and his pride, still loomed mountain high between 
them. 

If he ever should marry he wanted no cold, purse- 
proud woman, he told himself. He craved for real 
love, warmth, gaiety, sympathy. Some of these he 
fancied that he found in Tory, who monopolized him 
more and more as the days slipped by. 

It was Damaris now who stood aloof, resisting any 
attempt to draw her within the charmed circle she 
had once so longed to enter. Only by such with¬ 
drawal could she maintain her self-control, she 
found. She could not endure more than a certain 
amount of the torment of contact. Her “golden 
dishes” mocked her with their emptiness. They 
did not hold even “a dinner of herbs” wherewith to 
satisfy her soul’s hunger. 

To Roland’s affection she still clung blindly, lav- 
312 











GOLDEN DISHES 


313 


ishing all that she could on him, trying to forestall 
his least wish, striving pathetically to get closer 
and closer to him, with no happier result than to 
bore her brother and to arouse Tory’s jealousy, 
never really dormant. 

The girl was spurred to voice it one morning when 
alone with Waring, after Tempest had irrevocably 
declared that he must get back to town next day. 

“I don’t see how we are to stand this place when 
Mr. Tempus goes,” she said dolefully. “Between the 
damp and the cold, and Hubert mooning disconso¬ 
lately about, and no one to see and nowhere to go, 
Thornycross will be enough to drive us poor sun- 
worshippers melancholy mad.” 

“No need for such mournful extremes, my pig¬ 
ling,” answered Waring cheerfully. “Damaris wants 
to travel. We can all follow the sun as soon as this 
confounded leg of mine will let me.” He looked 
expectantly at her for a brightening which did not 
appear. 

“That’s not what I want at all. I loathe going 
about in crowds.” 

“What do you want, then?” 

“To go away by ourselves. To roam the world 
together as we used to do, you and I, staying in 
places or going on as the spirit moves us. Thorny- 
cross stifles me. I can’t breathe here with all these 
dreadful, crowding trees, these horrible unfriendly 
people.” 

“Why, Pixy!” Roland gasped at the sudden out¬ 
burst. 

“Yes, Nutkin, I may as well have it all out while 
I’m about it. I hate the place. I hate the people. 
They are unfriendly. You have no idea of the 


314 


GOLDEN DISHES 


odious way they look at me. Damaris’s kindness 
chokes me. Sometimes I hate her too, as I know 
she hates me. Yes, she does, Nutkin, and you know 
it too. She wants to have you for herself, using all 
the little tricks of childhood and ‘do you remember. , 
I want to have you for myself-” 

“No need for you to use any tricks, Pixy.” 

“I know that. You’re mine, not hers. We’ve 
been through so much together. But you’ll always 
be a bone of contention between us until she gives 
up clinging to you as she does, and realizes that 
you and she have been travelling away from each 
other all these years, while you and I have been 
marching along together, side by side. You know 
that’s true.” 

“Yes, that’s true enough,” Waring admitted re¬ 
luctantly. “But Damaris has been awfully good to 
us, Pixy. We can’t throw her over like that.” 

“Why not? She’ll be quite happy here. She has 
everything she really wants. Probably she and 
Hubert will console each other before very long.” 

“Possibly.” Waring looked, as he felt, uncom¬ 
fortable. 

“Don’t frown like that, dearest. It doesn’t suit 
you.” Tory put up a brown finger and smoothed 
the wrinkles off his forehead. 

“I can’t help it. You’ve upset me. What is it 
exactly that you want to do?” 

“Only to go away by ourselves, back to our old 
free life. You must have enough money left to take 
us to some cheap little place on the Italian Riviera 
where we could—what was it you used to say?— 
‘loaf and invite your soul,’ and I could just be a 
child again in the sun/’ 



GOLDEN DISHES 


315 


“You’ll never be a child again in the sun, my 
Pixy,” said Waring unhappily. “Hubert has given 
you of the Tree of Knowledge. You can’t forget 
that.” 

Tory sprang up, her cheeks flaming. “I can and 
will.” 

“You can’t and won’t,” Waring assured her. 
“Then there are your friends Brooke and Tempest. 
What of them?” 

“They can come after us if they want to see us: 
I think I’m tired of men, Nutkin. All I want is to 
get away with you.” 

“I don’t see how we’re to do it, hedge-pigling. 
That is, without hurting Damaris abominably, and I 
don’t want to do that. Wouldn’t you enjoy going to 
decent hotels and having proper food and not having 
to count the pennies?” 

“Not if it meant having Damaris always with us.” 

Waring sighed. Tory was sometimes distressingly 
uncompromising in her attitudes. He could see no 
sign of one of her sudden sweet concessions here, 
though he scanned her rebellious face anxiously. 
“It will be dull without Tempest,” he admitted. 
“We must make him promise to run down again 
before long.” 

“I’m afraid he won’t do that,” said Tory darkly. 

“Why not? You surely haven’t turned him down 
too, Pixy?” Waring sat up in bed and stared at 
her. 

Tory reddened. “Oh, no, of course not. He 
didn’t—I wasn’t—we-” 

“Why do you think he won’t come, then?” 

“Damaris doesn’t make him very welcome, does 
she?” 



316 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“I see no flaw in Damaris’s hospitality.” 

“You wouldn’t, of course, but he does. I have 
eyes in my head, Nutkin. I can see many things to 
which you’ve always been blind.” Tory sighed. 
Then she smiled suddenly. “Keep your blinkers on 
as long as you like, belovedest. When are we 
starting for Rapallo?” 

“Not at all,” said Waring decisively. “You’re a 
most inadequate nurse, Pixy. Coming here and 
worrying me when I’m helpless and can’t get away 
from you! No wonder my temperature has gone 
up.” 

Tory flew to his side. “But it hasn’t. You’re 
only teasing me, villainous one. Say you are!” 

“It’s all true except the temperature. I hear the 
sound of wheels on the gravel. Peep cautiously 
out and tell me who is coming.” 

Tory ran to the window. “It’s Lady Salmarais 
and her beer-barrel pony. I wonder what she wants. 
Shall I bring her up to see you, Nutkin?” 

“Heaven forbid. Perhaps she has come to chas¬ 
tise you for daring to refuse her son.” 

“Hubert would never be mad enough to tell her.” 

“No, I don’t think he would,” Waring agreed. 

Tory continued her investigations. “She’s got 
out of the phaeton. I can see the tail of her skirt 
on the top step. It’s gone. She has come in. Let’s 
listen for the sound of her footsteps along the cor¬ 
ridor, Nutkin.” Tory went to the door and lis¬ 
tened. Suddenly the laughter died out of her face. 
“Some one is roally coming,” she whispered. 

“I shall pretend to be asleep, then,” said Waring. 

“And I shall get under the bed,” declared Tory, 
darting away from the door. 




GOLDEN DISHES 317 

The little scratchy knock which Tempest always 
gave dispelled their fears. 

“Come in,” cried both, with obvious relief. 

Tempest entered. “Sanctuary!” he cried. “I 
was writing in the dining-room when I became aware 
of Lady Salmarais’s approach. I fled incontinently 
lest by any fell chance I should encounter her. 
I could not have borne that.” 

“Who did she ask for?” said Tory ungram¬ 
matically. 

“Miss Packe. There was a portent in her tone. I 
felt sorry for Damaris.” 

“Don’t waste your pity,” said Tory rather tartly. 
“Damaris has everything she wants. She can have 
Hubert too. I’ve quite finished with him.” 

Tempest looked at the girl in some surprise, and 
wondered what she meant. Suddenly he, too, be¬ 
came aware of the truth of Waring’s unheard pro¬ 
nouncement. The child Tory was gone. A some¬ 
what unexpected woman had peeped out of her 
sheath to fire her little poisoned arrow at Damaris. 

“Does she want the great Hubert?” Tempest 
asked unconcernedly. “I can’t say that I admire her 
taste if she does.” 

“Pixy, you’re letting your tongue run away with 
you,” Waring said. “Give me a cigarette, Tempest; 
I’ve run out of mine. I’ll repay you fourfold when 
next you come down.” 

Tempest tossed him his cigarette-case. “Be sure 
that you do,” he smiled. “But I’m afraid I’ll have 
to wait a bit for that joyous day, for I shan’t be 
able to get down here again for some time.” 

Tory shot a significant glance at her father. War¬ 
ing frowned. 


318 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Why is that?” 

“Too busy,” Tempest replied, lighting a cigarette 
for himself. “Eve got to work, my dear Signor 
Varingo. I can’t afford to dally in this Vale of 
Avilion overlong.” 

“Filthy lucre!” said Waring disdainfully. “I 
never knew any one with such a sordid mind as 
you.” 

“The necessity to live is, I admit, a sordid one,” 
said Tempest. “But unfortunately it happens to 
coincide with Nature’s strongest instinct, therefore 
it cannot be ignored, even by a transcendentalist 
like yourself. Besides, you’re all going abroad, 
aren’t you?” 

“Who told you that?” asked Waring, making 
smoke-rings. 

“Your sister.” 

“Nothing’s settled yet.” 

“Really? She spoke as if she were only waiting 
until you were able to get about again.” 

“We talked vaguely of it the other day,” Waring 
said. “But nothing definite has been arranged as 
yet.” 

“Nothing definite will be arranged if I’ve any¬ 
thing to say to it,” flashed Tory. 

“But you haven’t, Pixy-thing.” 

“I’ve this much, that I absolutely refuse to go 
trailing over the Continent in hordes,” said Tory 
defiantly. 

Tempest looked at her again. He was seeing new 
facets of her character this morning. 

“It’s the crowded three to which she objects,” 
Waring explained. “Three certainly is an awkward 
number. Now if we had four—a partie carr&e. 


GOLDEN DISHES 319 

Couldn’t you manage to join us, Tempest?” He 
flung this as a concession to Tory. 

“Quite impossible,” answered Tempest curtly. 

“Same sordid reasons?” 

“Same sordid reasons.” Once more Tempest be¬ 
gan to feel that his position at Paradell was fast 
becoming untenable. He wondered for about the 
tenth time why he had come at all, and as before 
found no satisfactory answer to his query. “Why 
don’t you ask Brooke?” he suggested. “He’d be 
delighted to go, I’m sure.” 

“Brooke is a Philistine,” said Waring hastily. 
“His views on Art would make me want to encom¬ 
pass his murder.” 

“Tory could entertain him while you acted as 
cicerone to your sister.” 

“A charming programme,” cried Tory with flash¬ 
ing eyes. “Any Philistine is good enough for me, 
I suppose. Thank you, Mr. Tempus.” 

“Behold a perfect specimen of a Storm in a Tea¬ 
cup,” said Tempest teasingly. “I thought that I 
had made a brilliant suggestion, but I appear to 
have been mistaken. Besides Brooke couldn’t go 
any more than I can. He, too, has to live.” 

“I really don’t see the necessity,” exclaimed Tory. 

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” 
quoted Tempest, still on teasing bent. “What did 
Chris Brooke say to you when last you saw him?” 

“He was intolerable, as usual,” cried Tory hotly. 
“He seems to think it his mission in life to lecture 
me, and I won’t have it.” 

“What golden opportunities he would have if he 
went to Italy with you!” sighed Tempest. 

“He’s not coming to Italy with me. No one is 


320 


GOLDEN DISHES 


coming to Italy except Nutkin, and that’s that!” 

“How simple were the days when one could just 
whip her and be done with it! ” sighed Waring. “We 
can’t possibly tell poor Damaris that she is not to 
come abroad with us, Pixy.” 

“I can.” 

“Pixy, you’re not to. I forbid you to say one 
word to Damaris on the subject.” 

“I make no rash promises,” said Tory obstinately. 

Tempest glanced from father to daughter, and 
back again. Once more their strange likeness in 
unlikeness struck him. Once more the realization 
of the girl’s absolute selfishness where every one 
but Waring was concerned struck him like a blow. 

In spite of her declaration he found it impossible 
to believe that even Tory could confront the woman 
who had been so generous to her and tell her bluntly 
that she must not go abroad with them. It would be 
too heartless, too cruel. Yet, as he looked at Tory’s 
set little face he had to admit a certain soullessness 
in it, a lack of pity, of human tenderness, and his 
heart sank. Was poor Damaris really to be dealt 
this final blow, this last cruel thrust? Was this all 
that Miss Packe’s money had brought her? 

He saw now that Waring had always followed, 
would always follow, the line of least resistance: 
that, charming as he undoubtedly was, he was weak: 
that he would break like a reed in the hands of 
any one who leant upon him as a staff. And seeing 
this, he saw also in a flash of revelation, further 
suffering, further disappointment for Damaris. 

Tory’s crude thrust about Hubert Salmarais, echo¬ 
ing his own as it did, pricked him too. 

How cruel they all had been to Damaris, even he, 


GOLDEN DISHES 


321 


who imagined that he had only stood aloof! He 
had a new disturbing vision of her, always on the 
edge of their circle, never really within it, and the 
sight smote him suddenly. It seemed to put them 
all so definitely in the wrong, when really there had 
been nothing definite in it at all. It was an attitude 
rather than any concrete incident, and attitudes were 
intangible things. 

He rose suddenly. 

“Don’t go,” said Tory. “Keep Nutkin company 
while I prospect and see whether Lady Salmarais 
has gone yet.” 

Tempest returned to his seat as she stole with 
mock caution from the room. 

Waring’s eyes sought his with all their old whim¬ 
sicality as she closed the door behind her. 

“She’s a handful, Tempest.” 

“She is,” Tempest agreed. 

“But she’s the best daughter, the most loyal com¬ 
rade a man ever had. We really should be lost 
without each other.” 

“No doubt,” Tempest returned dryly. “But you 
won’t have to lose each other, will you?” 

Waring glanced quickly at him again. 

“No, I don’t suppose we shall.” Then he laughed 
suddenly. “Poor Hubert Salmarais wanted to marry 
us both, Tempest!” 

“Courageous man!” said Tempest, who, for no 
reason that Waring could discover, had grown unac¬ 
countably taciturn. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 



|ADY SALMARAIS would be obliged if 
you would kindly see her for a moment, 
miss.” Benson violated the privacy of 
Damaris’s new sanctuary to make this 
announcement. 

“Certainly, Benson. Where is she?” 

“In the drawing-room, miss.” 

Damaris closed the account-book with whose 
columns she was wrestling, and rose from her desk. 

She went along the corridor and crossed the hall 
to the drawing-room with an odd sense that some¬ 
thing like this had happened before. When was it? 
Oh, yes, on that day (which now seemed so strangely 
long ago) of Roland’s arrival at Paradell, when 
Damaris had entered the drawing-room to find Lady 
Salmarais transfixed with horror at the sight of the 
two Bohemians dancing their version of the can¬ 
can on the terrace without. 

She smiled rather wryly at the memory. Much 
water had flowed under Wyllevor Bridge since that 
day. No apprehension of the purport of Lady Sal¬ 
marais’s visit seized her. She took it for granted 
that she had come to see her about the Women’s 
Institute, or the Dorcas Society, or one or other of 
her multifarious village interests. 

She went forward to greet her guest with a pleas¬ 
ant smile, which died to a look of surprise at Lady 
Salmarais’s stony demeanour. 

“Perhaps you can enlighten me about this,” Lady 
322 










GOLDEN DISHES 


3 23 


Salmarais said without preliminary greeting, hold¬ 
ing a letter towards Damaris as if it were a chal¬ 
lenge. 

Damaris took the folded sheet and opened it. It 
bore the date of the previous day and the printed 
address of a London club. It began: 

“My dear mother-” 

Damaris looked up in some surprise. “But—but 
this is from Hubert.” 

“Naturally.” Lady Salmarais’s chins quivered. 

“Why should you wish me-?” 

“Read it and you will see.” 

“Won’t you sit down, Lady Salmarais?” Damaris 
said quietly. “Surely there is no need for you to 
stand.” 

Lady Salmarais sank down on the nearest chair 
with an air of protest, closely scrutinizing Damaris’s 
face as she read her son’s letter. 

Briefly summarized it announced that Hubert 
Salmarais had suddenly decided to go on an expe¬ 
dition to Egypt with a fellow-naturalist, whose 
hobby was, like his own, coleoptera. 

Damaris’s puzzled blue eyes met Lady Salmarais’s 
accusatory gaze as she handed her back the letter. 

“This is very sudden, isn’t it?” 

“Very, indeed.” 

“It’s surprising news to me,” Damaris continued. 
“In a note the other day Hubert told me that he was 
going to town for a few days on business and that 
he would come over to see us on his return.” 

“Was that all he said?” 

“All that I can remember.” 

“Then you can throw no light on this extraor¬ 
dinarily sudden change of plans?” 




324 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Fm afraid not/’ Damaris began. Then her face 
altered as she remembered Hubert’s interview with 
Tory. . . . Instead of the orthodox cure for a 
wounded heart, big game shooting, he was going to 
seek solace in beetle-hunting in the land where the 
beetle was once held sacred! Poor Hubert! 

Lady Salmarais pounced on the tell-tale change 
of countenance as cat on mouse. 

“Ah, I see your intelligence is beginning to work. 
I thought that you might be able to enlighten me as 
to the cause of Hubert’s extraordinary conduct. You 
see he says in this letter that he will not be able 
to came down again to Shotton before he starts for 
Egypt* Why is that?” 

“It has evidently been arranged very suddenly,” 
said Damaris uncomfortably. 

“Very suddenly, indeed,” returned Lady Salmarais 
with a disagreeable emphasis. “His decision to go to 
London was extremely sudden also, and coincided 
with his last visit to Paraded, curiously enough.” 

“Did it?” murmured Damaris. 

“I had not expected this duplicity in you, Dam¬ 
aris Packe,” said Lady Salmarais indignantly. 

Damaris’s colour rose. “Duplicity? That is a 
word which needs some explanation, Lady Sal¬ 
marais.” 

“I think not. Look into your own heart and see 
if your conscience acquits you of acting with du¬ 
plicity towards me and mine.” 

“It does, absolutely,” cried Damaris. “You must 
be more explicit, please. I do not understand these 
vague hints and insinuations. I must ask you to 
tell me exactly what I am supposed to have done.” 

“Very well, then.” Lady Salmarais made a large 


GOLDEN DISHES 


325 


gesture as if to wave all delicacy aside. “Can you 
deny that you have given my son every encourage¬ 
ment to come here?” 

“I?” 

“Yes, you. You are not a child. You must have 
known the reason for his frequent visits. Be honest, 
Damaris, and admit that you did.” 

“Well, yes, perhaps I did, but-” 

“Ah! . . . Knowing that, was it kind, was it 
fair to encourage his hopes and then callously throw 
him over, as I can only conjecture that you have 
done?” 

“Oh, Lady Salmarais-” 

“Let me finish, please.” Lady Salmarais’s atti¬ 
tude was that of counsel for the prosecution, whose 
sole aim is to prove the prisoner guilty. “When my 
dear son confided his hopes to me I gave him all my 
sympathy. Perhaps I had once dreamed of a more 
brilliant marriage for him, but no matter. I was 
prepared to welcome you as a daughter for your 
dear mother’s sake as well as for your own. I 
thought—I hoped that you would make Hubert 
happy. It never entered my head that you could 
possibly refuse him when you had encouraged the 
poor fellow to come here morning, noon and night.” 

Damaris gasped. “Did Hubert say that I had 
refused him?” 

“He did not need to. A mother’s eyes see be¬ 
neath the surface. I knew.” 

“Did he really tell you that he cared for me?” 

“He admitted it when I taxed him with it.” 

Damaris’s bewilderment grew. It seemed in¬ 
credible that Hubert could wilfully have deceived 
his mother like this: that he could have used an 




326 


GOLDEN DISHES 


imaginary admiration for herself as a cloak for his 
deliberate wooing of Tory. She leaned forward, 
flushed with annoyance. 

“What did he say exactly? Please tell me. It 
is important that I should know.” 

“What do mere words matter?” said Lady Sal- 
marais grandly. “The facts speak for themselves.” 

“In this case they don’t seem to speak the truth,” 
returned Damaris quietly. “I can scarcely believe 
that Hubert ever told you that he cared for me.” 

“Then you haven’t refused him?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“Then why, why did he look so miserable? Why 
did he suddenly go to London and still more sud¬ 
denly decide to rush off to Egypt? You must have 
said something to upset him. He is very sensitive, 
and he knows but little of women, my poor boy!” 

For a moment Damaris felt as if she were caught 
in the toils of a nightmare from which she could 
not break free. 

“Do try to remember exactly what you said to 
Hubert and he to you,” she said helplessly. 

Lady Salmarais frowned. “Between mother and 
son a hint, a look is enough. One does not need 
bald assertions. A word suffices.” 

“What word was there in this case?” Damaris 
persisted. 

“As well as I can recollect I asked him if he 
went wooing to Paraded, and he admitted that he 
did. I gave him my blessing, and he said that I 
should be the first to know when he had any news 
for me.” 

“That was all?” 

“Was it not enough?” returned Lady Salmarais 


GOLDEN DISHES 327 

with dignity. “I waited patiently—but you say he 
has not yet proposed to you?” 

“No.” 

“Then why this inexplicable flight?” Lady Sal- 
marais looked puzzled. No perception of the truth 
as yet dawned upon her. “There must be some little 
misunderstanding, something which can easily be 
set right.” 

“I don’t think there is any misunderstanding.” 

“Come, come, my dear Damaris, you must not 
let pride stand in your way. If you do not care to 
write to dear Hubert yourself—I can quite under¬ 
stand these delicate little scruples—a line from 


“But you mustn’t write to Hubert, Lady Sal- 
marais.” 

“Why not?” Lady Salmarais stared at her, puz¬ 
zled by her obvious discomfort. 

“Because—because-” Damaris stopped, not 

knowing what to say, half reluctant to embroil Tory 
still further with the irate mother and half indignant 
with Lady Salmarais for taking it for granted that 
she was only too willing to marry Hubert whenever 
he chose to ask her. 

“Come, Damaris, there is evidently some mystery 
here. You know more of the affair than you will 
admit. I think an explanation is due to me.” Lady 
Salmarais faced Damaris with the look that had 
quelled recalcitrant committees. “The truth, please.” 

“Hubert admitted that he came wooing to Para- 
dell,” said Damaris, with a sudden sense of the out- 
of-dateness of the phrase. “I am not the only 
woman at Paradell.” She paused to let the full 
significance of the words sink in. 



328 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Lady Salmarais’s face was a study. It passed 
from utter blankness through bewilderment, sus¬ 
picion, incredulity to an angry comprehension. 

“You can’t mean that child? Absurd! Prepos¬ 
terous ! Monstrous! ” 

Damaris was silent. 

“Do you expect me to believe that Hubert —my 

son —was foolish enough-? That hoyden! That 

unwhipped minx! ... Do you insinuate that she 

dared—that Hubert was so lost to all sense-” 

“Don’t say things you might regret afterwards, 
Lady Salmarais,” Damaris interrupted. “You must 
not blame Tory either. She gave Hubert no en¬ 
couragement whatsoever. Until he proposed to her 
I don’t believe she realized his intention. She 
looked upon him as an old friend of her father’s, a 
contemporary of his, no more. No one at Paradell 
encouraged Hubert. When he spoke to Roland he 

warned him that he had no chance, that Tory-” 

“But why should he have no chance? How dared 
that brat lead him on and then throw him over? 
She should have gone down on her knees and 
thanked heaven for such an opportunity. What 
does she want-?” 

“She doesn’t want to marry at all yet. She is far 
too young. I am sure that when you think over 
matters quietly you will see that it has all happened 
for the best. You know that you would not have 
liked Tory for a daughter-in-law. Hubert will prob¬ 
ably find some one far better suited to him later on. 
Meanwhile this Egyptian trip is just what he needs 
to divert his attention. He will have got over the 
smart of his disappointment by the time he comes 
back. Why, he may meet his fate on his travels!” 






GOLDEN DISHES 


329 


“You speak as if such events happened casually.” 

“Well, they do sometimes, don’t they?” Damaris 
answered cheerfully. Then further consolation 
occurred to her. “We shall not be here when Hubert 
returns. We are going abroad as soon as Roland is 
able to travel. He finds the English climate rather 
trying, so-” 

“Indeed!” Lady Salmarais’s indignation was di¬ 
verted into another channel. “Yet the English cli¬ 
mate has bred quite a tolerable type of man. A type 
of man which compares favourably with the frogs 
and dancing-masters of other countries-” 

“You and Aunt Charlotte would have agreed,” 
put in Damaris hastily. “She always said that Eng¬ 
land was good enough for her and that she never 
had the least desire to leave it.” 

“I hope I am not as insular as all that,” returned 
Lady Salmarais loftily. She rose, much to the relief 
of her hostess. “No good can be served by pro¬ 
longing this interview further. I shall say nothing 
as regards the heartless treatment meted out to my 
poor son, who was so blinded by his unfortunate 
infatuation that he mistook the purport of my ques¬ 
tions. I am glad, at least, to be able to acquit you 
of blame, Damaris. It grieved me to think your 
mother’s daughter capable of the conduct which I 
was reluctantly forced to attribute to you. I hope 
and trust that you take the right view of Hubert’s 
folly, and that his expedition to the East will quickly 
restore him to his normal self again. As for us, my 
dear, we part friends, don’t we?” 

“Of course, Lady Salmarais.” 

From "the sudden peck at her cheek and the warm 
significant pressure of her hand Damaris felt that 




330 


GOLDEN DISHES 


Lady Salmarais had not yet abandoned her original 
hope of an alliance between Shot ton and Paradell. 
She reddened at the thought, and felt a wild desire 
to laugh hysterically. 

Lady Salmarais noted her blush as they went 
across the hall together. 

“There are always these little disappointments in 
life, dear,” she said kindly. “We must only wish 
for Hubert a speedy return to his senses and a 
renewed appreciation of the treasures around him.” 

Damaris longed to disclaim any personal con¬ 
nection with the treasures around Hubert Salmarais, 
but she did not dare to risk any diminution of Lady 
Salmarais’s renewed friendliness. She waved her 
off from the steps with a sense of relief: then went 
back into the house and down the corridor to the 
library. 

She was barely seated at her desk when Tory 
entered in a bright-eyed flurry. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE 

ORY closed the door behind her with 
unusual solicitude. As a rule her mode 
of procedure in such matters provoked 
from her father a teasing: “Peasants 
and dogs never shut doors. Which 
are you, Pixy?” 

“Mot, je suis citoyenne du monde” the girl would 
invariably reply. “Why should I bother to shut 
doors unless I have something to say which I don’t 
want any one to overhear?” 

Damaris, remembering more than one such epi¬ 
sode, looked up apprehensively at the girl’s action. 
What had Tory to say now that she did not wish 
any one to hear? Had she any unwelcome confi¬ 
dence to make her? 

Tory’s expression was unusual: a strange mingling 
of nervousness and defiance, with an occasional flash 
of another emotion which Damaris could not read. 

“What is it, Tory?” she asked, with a sudden 
shrinking from she knew not what. 

She was suddenly aware that Tory was in her 
most Pagan, her least approachable mood. That, at 
least, scarcely portended a love-confidence, for 
which Damaris’s heart sent up a vague thanksgiving. 

Tory fidgetted with a paperweight, then seated 
herself on the edge of the desk. 

“I watched old Mother Salmarais go. What did 
she want?” 

“To upbraid me for having refused Hubert.” 

“You?” 



331 












332 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Yes. It never entered her head to imagine that 
he came to see any one else.” 

Tory swung her foot and laughed nervously. “Not 
exactly flattering to me. Still, it shows the old 
lady’s good sense. Did you enlighten her?” 

“I had to, in the end.” 

“Good. What did she say? I’d like to have heard 
her.” 

“I don’t think you would, Tory.” 

“Why? Was she very venomous? She should 
have been grateful to me for having refused her 
precious son.” 

“I think she was too angry at your presumption 
in doing so to think of the gratitude which she will 
no doubt feel one day,” returned Damaris. “I told 
her that you were in no way to blame, that you 
never really encouraged Hubert, that you looked on 
him as-” 

“As an uncle!” Tory put in quickly. “That’s 
what he will be sooner or later, most likely.” 

“Never!” Damaris’s cheek burned. 

“It would be most suitable.” 

“These suitable affairs seldom materialize.” 

“Well, much may be said for the life of a rich 
spinster,” said Tory nonchalantly. She took up a 
paper-knife that lay near her, examined it closely, 
and put it down again. 

Damaris’s heart began to beat uncomfortably. 
She had a dim presage that something unpleasant 
was coming. Tory obviously had not yet arrived at 
what she wanted to say, that portentous announce¬ 
ment on which she had closed the door against pos¬ 
sible eavesdroppers. Damaris, impatient of further 
delay, took the bull by the horns with that new 



GOLDEN DISHES 333 

facility on which she had recently congratulated 
herself. 

“You didn’t come here to talk to me of the com¬ 
pensations in the life of a rich spinster, Tory,” she 
said, looking full at the girl. 

“No.” Tory moved uneasily under the direct 
gaze. 

“What is it, then?” 

Tory fidgetted. She found her self-imposed mis¬ 
sion surprisingly difficult. Still, that did not deter 
her from her purpose. She lifted her head and 
looked defiantly at Damaris. 

“You said once that you wanted us to be happy in 
our own way,” she challenged. 

“I remember.” Damaris wondered more than 
ever what was coming. 

“Did you mean that?” 

“Most certainly I meant it.” 

“Very well, then. It won’t make Nutkin a bit 
happy if you insist in coming abroad with us!” 
Tory’s eyes flashed and narrowed. It was out at 
last, and for one breathless moment she was half 
afraid of the consequences. 

Damaris gasped as if the girl had struck her. 
Her soft colour faded to a sudden pallor. She had 
never expected an onslaught in this direction. Its 
deliberate cruelty took her breath away. 

“If I insist-?” she echoed, tonelessly. “I 

don’t understand you, Tory. You must be more 
explicit, please.” It was like some queer echo of 
her earlier interview with Lady Salmarais. 

“I should have thought it easy enough to under¬ 
stand. Nutkin has always hated going about in 
crowds.” 



334 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“In crowds,” Damaris repeated dully. “Am I, 
then, a crowd?” 

“Oh, you know ‘two’s company/ ” muttered Tory 
uncomfortably, swinging her foot. 

“But it was Roland’s own idea that we should all 
go abroad together, his suggestion. He was going 
to draw up an itinerary the other day. It was to be 
my introduction to the beauties of other countries,” 
Damaris said, pain and bewilderment surging with¬ 
in her. She could not bring herself to believe that 
the girl really meant what she said. “Roland was 
as keen as a boy about it. We talked—we planned 

-” She stopped again and then went on in 

the same hurt, puzzled tone. “Did Roland ask 
you to tell me this?” 

Any implied rebuke of her idol roused Tory to 
arms at once. “Oh, no, no. He would be very 
angry with me if he knew. He said I wasn’t to say a 
word about it to you.” 

“Then you’ve already talked it over?” said Dam¬ 
aris incredulously. “You’ve discussed my not 
going?” 

“Yes.” 

“When?” 

“Just now. Oh, I know I’m a beast. I know he’d 
never have said a word to you himself, but I’m not 
blind. I can read his thoughts. He’s being stifled 
here.” 

Damaris’s hand tightened on the arm of her chair. 

“Indeed! . . . And is it I who stifle him?” 

“Of course not,” answered Tory perfunctorily. 
“You’ve been most kind, most generous all along. 
It’s the life, the place, the people. He wasn’t made 
for convention any more than I am. You must 



GOLDEN DISHES 


335 


have seen for yourself how this place bores him. 
He’s not his real self here. You don’t know what 
he was like in the old days, how gay, how delight¬ 
ful he was. We just lived and laughed from day to 
day. Poverty had no terrors for us. We were happy, 
happy, happy!” The girl flung out her arms with 
a passionate gesture. 

“And you’re not happy now?” asked Damaris 
dully. 

“I’m not certainly, and I don’t believe he is either. 
He was full of sentimental ideas about England. 
The country was wrapped for him in a haze of 
romance. He was always talking of coming back, 
coming back. . . . Now he has come back and it’s 
been a bitter disappointment,’” cried Tory, oblivious 
of how she hurt the woman who had sacrificed more 
than the girl ever dreamed of in order to make her 
brother’s wish come true. “I can see him pining 
for the sunshine, the gaiety, the freedom of his old 
life.” 

“While I am the jailer who has shut him away 
from these delights,” said Damaris, her lips closing 
in as hard a line as their softness permitted. 

“Don’t be silly,” said Tory rudely. The blood 
rushed to her cheeks. “Of course you’re not. Nut- 
kin would have come back some day to be dis¬ 
illusioned whether you sent for him or not. You 
mustn’t run away with the idea that he has said a 
word of this to me. It’s only that I, who know him so 
well, have seen it. I can always read below the 
surface where he is concerned.” 

“I suppose that it has never occurred to you that 
you may sometimes misread what is below the 
surface?” 


336 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“Never.” Tory shook her head. 

“I can scarcely credit Roland with such hypoc¬ 
risy,” said Damaris slowly. “He seemed so 
keen-” 

“It wasn’t hypocrisy,” cried Tory. “If you know 
him at all you must know that he is always as 
pleased with a new idea as a child is with a new 
toy. It’s only when he has had time to think it 
over that-” 

“That he drops the new toy and breaks it to 
pieces. ... I see. I ought to be grateful to you 
for opening my eyes to much to which I seem to 
have been blind.” 

“Yes, you may hit back if you like,” muttered 
Tory. “It’s only fair.” 

“Thank you,” returned Damaris dryly. “I con¬ 
fess that I had no idea that you both were so miser¬ 
able at Paraded. I am sorry that my poor attempts 
to make a home for you here have failed so lament¬ 
ably. I assure you it has not been due to want of 
care on my part. Ever since I first knew that you 
were coming”—her voice trembled a little in spite 
of her effort to keep it steady—“my one thought has 
been how best to please you both. It was for 
Roland’s sake—for your sake, too, Tory—that I— 

that I-” Her voice broke. She bit her lip as 

she fought for self-control. 

“That you what?” asked Tory, half curious, half 
uncomfortable. 

She did not quite know what she had expected 
when she gave way to her unconsidered impulse. 
It had never occurred to her that Damaris would 
whiten and look as if she were going to faint: that 
all the youth would drain from her face and voice, 





GOLDEN DISHES 


337 


leaving her looking old and stricken. She had only 
thought of her own distaste for Damaris’s company 
on the projected trip and had acted on the sudden 
urge to prevent it. Now a faint foreshadowing of 
the consequences of her rashness came to her. In 
her eagerness to keep her aunt at bay her tongue 
had tripped to implicate her father. She had em¬ 
broiled Nutkin unnecessarily with Damaris. The 
shadow of his certain displeasure fell upon her. 

“That you did what, Damaris ?” she repeated 
awkwardly. 

“Threw away happiness in order to obtain Aunt 
Charlotte’s money,” cried Damaris, with a sudden 
bitter fierceness. 

For a moment Tory drew back abashed, wonder¬ 
ing what she meant. Anguish had rung in Damaris’s 
tone. The look on her face pierced the girl with the 
poignance of its suffering. What happiness could 
she possibly have thrown away comparable in any 
way to being with Nutkin? . . . But she had not 
been much with Nutkin. She, Tory had seen to 
that. For the first time a little stab of remorse 
pricked her. 

“Nutkin did want to come to England,” she mut¬ 
tered. “He was happy—at first. He knows nothing 
of what I’ve just said to you. He’d be furious with 
me if he did. You won’t tell him, will you?” 

Damaris smiled faintly. “Then you really believe 
that anything I could say would-” 

“Look here, Damaris,” Tory broke in. “I know 
I’ve been a beast-” 

“Yes. You have.” 

“If I had taken time to think I wouldn’t have said 
what I did. I really didn’t mean it all either, but 




338 


GOLDEN DISHES 


it’s said now, and you won’t believe that. I’m sorry 
that you chucked away any happiness on account of 
us. You’ve been awfully good to us, I know-” 

“Please spare me your perfunctory gratitude,” 
Damaris interrupted. “It is better that I should 
know the truth. I quite see that you spoke on an 
unconsidered impulse. I see also that you probably 
voiced your own sentiments rather than Roland’s. 
You’ve fought against me from the very first, Tory. 
You never gave me a chance. You had hardened 
your heart against me even before we met, and you 
exerted your influence against me from the very 
beginning. I have been a fool all along. I shall be 
a fool to the end, I suppose. But you see, you and 
your father were the only people I had in the world. 
All I asked was that you should love me a little and 
let me love you. All that I did, thought and hoped 
for simply boils down to that. Reasonable as it 
seems, it was apparently too much to expect. I 
wonder why? Can you tell me, Tory?” 

The girl moved uncomfortably at the quiet hurt 
voice. She narrowed her eyes as she met Damaris’s 
insistent gaze. 

“I—oh, I know I’ve been a beast all along,” she 
blurted out, kicking the end of the desk with a rest¬ 
less heel. 

“But why? Why? What had I ever done to 
you? Why were you so prejudiced against me?” 

“Because you tried to come between Nutkin and 
me,” muttered the girl. 

“That’s not true, Tory. I never did. What a 
warped little soul you must have to take such a 
petty view of love! I never attempted, never even 
wished to come between you and your father. He 



GOLDEN DISHES 


339 


was my dear big brother long before you ever entered 
the world. . . . That old affection was all I asked 
for. You never had it. He gave you something 
quite different. But you were selfish, greedy. You 
grudged me even my rightful share of brotherly 
love. You wanted it all for yourself. You’re rather 
fond of saying that things aren’t fair. Was that 
being fair to me?” 

“No,” murmured Tory, reddening. 

“Can you disentangle your own jealous hatred of 
me from—from all that you have been saying suf¬ 
ficiently to give me the actual truth?” 

“All I’ve been saying is perfectly true except-” 

Tory gulped down her jealous pride in order to 

utter the distasteful fact-“that I really don’t 

believe Nutkin would mind your coming with us if 

you wanted to. It is I who-” She stopped in 

crimson confusion. 

“Yes. I know it is you who resent my presence,” 
said Damaris very low. “I have known it all along 
and wondered why.” 

A brief silence fell. Then Tory spoke awkwardly. 

“Can’t you forget what I’ve said?” 

Damaris looked at the girl in amazement. Had 
she so little intuition, was she so utterly destitute of 
feeling that she did not realize what a blow she had 
dealt her? Damaris’s imaginary world had crashed 
about her ears at the blast of Tory’s defiant trumpet. 
She had the strange sensation that it was only by 
sitting quite still that she could avoid being buried 
in its falling ruins. 

“How could I forget?” she answered simply. 

Her look touched Tory in her tenderest place— 
her love for her father. 





340 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“You won’t tell Nutkin, though?” Tory cried. 
“You’ll come just as it was arranged?” 

Again Damaris’s gaze rested on the girl’s con¬ 
fused face. 

“How could I?” she said again. “What pleasure 
would any of us get out of such an arrangement? 
Tory, you are very young, very ignorant, very 
cruel. I hope that no one will ever hurt you as 
you’ve hurt me today.” 

“I’m sorry,” Tory muttered. 

“You’re only sorry because you’re afraid that I 
shall tell Roland. You won’t be really sorry until 
you’ve suffered yourself. But you may make your 
mind easy in this instance. I shall not tell Roland. 
I couldn’t. . . . Oh, you insensitive child, can’t you 
see that?” The cry seemed forced from her. 

“What will you do, then?” 

“I shall tell him that I have changed my mind 
about going abroad. I shall write to my solicitor, 
Mr. Pilkington, as I have been meaning to do for 
some time and get him to make a proper settlement 
on your father so that he may be able to paint in 
comfort without feeling the pinch of poverty again. 
You will then be free to go where you wish, do what 
you choose, stay where you like without the incubus 
of my presence. I have no desire now to crowd into 
any one’s life. It was a foolish experiment, bring¬ 
ing three more or less mature people of varying 
temperaments together and expecting them to 
amalgamate. I see that now. But I was colossally 
ignorant, stupidly hopeful. . . . Well, it’s all over 
now. Please go, Tory. I should like to be alone 
for a little.” 

Damaris tried to rise but found that her legs 


GOLDEN DISHES 


341 


trembled violently when she essayed to move. Her 
hold on her self-control was but a slender thread, 
frayed almost to snapping point. The one thing 
essential seemed to be that Tory should go while it 
yet held. 

The girl slipped from the desk’s edge to the floor. 
She had triumphed all along the line, gained every 
point and more than she had ever expected: yet no 
flush of victory fired her. On the contrary, it was 
as if a chill finger touched her heart. A sense of 
guilt weighed upon her. She felt that she could no 
more expect Damaris’s forgiveness than she could 
forgive herself. 

As she stood there before the quiet stricken figure 
in the chair a quick cinema-pageant of Damaris’s 
kindnesses flashed before her reluctant eyes. She 
moved awkwardly. 

“I am sorry,” she said. “Whether you believe me 
or not.” 

She turned and crossed the room with a heavi¬ 
ness unusual to her, opened the door, closed it behind 
her and was gone. 

The click of the lock released Damaris from the 
numbness which held her. There was no longer any 
need for self-control. She shivered involuntarily 
at the thought of her shattered world. There seemed 
to be nothing left. 

She put her head down on her hands and sobbed 
as if her heart would break. 

Indeed, in that bitter moment she felt as if it 
had already broken. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR 



ER sacrifice had been all for nothing. 
That was what hurt most. She had 
thrown away the real treasure for dross 
—golden dishes with nothing between 
them. She had failed in everything she 
had attempted. There was nothing left. Even this 
projected wandering to which she had looked for¬ 
ward with a real thrill of pleasure proved to be only 
a mirage. 

Her sacrifice had brought happiness to no one, 
not even to Roland, for whom it had been principally 
made. 

How right Ludlow had been! It was no wonder 
that he despised her. No one could despise her more 
than she did herself. Her sobs rose chokingly. It 
was a difficult moment, hard to bear. 

Damaris knew that she must get a grip on herself 
again, but just for this surrendered minute it was a 
relief to let herself go. 

In her abandonment she did not hear the opening 
of the library door, therefore she was not aware that 
Ludlow Tempest stood on the threshold, regarding 
her with a strange look in his eyes. 

For a moment he hesitated, not knowing whether 
to go or stay. One impulse, urging flight, told him 
that he had no right to intrude upon such helpless 
grief. Older claims, rising insistently, cried, “Who 
has a better right than you?” 

He entered the room, closing the door behind him, 
and came quickly up to the desk. 

342 








GOLDEN DISHES 


343 


Here was no self-possessed lady of the Manor, 
aloof in her hard-won dignity. It was Damaris, his 
own girl, who was crying her heart out over some¬ 
thing. Barriers went down with a rush at the sight. 
He stooped and gathered the trembling figure in his 
arms. At the soft contact a flood of the old tender¬ 
ness surged over him. 

Damaris, bewildered, raised a tear-blotched face to 
his, unconscious appeal in her soft blue eyes. 

“Damaris, dear, what is it?” he cried. 

“Ludlow!” Radiance shone through the quench¬ 
ing blur of tears. The unbelievable had happened. 
She clutched the arms that held her. 

“Ludlow, oh, Ludlow!” 

“You’re mine, then?” It was assertion rather 
than question. 

“Of course.” She smiled through her tears at the 
absurdity of such a question. 

Then, without further query or explanation, their 
lips met and across the darkness of Damaris Packe’s 
sky sprang once more the glorious arch of Hope’s 
rainbow. 

The world was lost in the ecstasy of that kiss, long 
dreamed of, long renounced. Differing from their 
earlier passion in a new knowledge of mutual loneli¬ 
ness and renunciation, it transported them from the 
mundane to some hitherto unknown plane, where 
nothing mattered save the fact that they had once 
lost and now found each other again. 

At last they came back to earth. Damaris leaned 
her head against Tempest’s shoulder with a long 
quivering sigh. They talked inconsequently, with 
the irrelevance of lovers. He put a tender hand on 
her hair. 


344 GOLDEN DISHES 

“How I’ve been wanting to touch it!” he mur¬ 
mured. 

“Have you? Why didn’t you?” 

“I didn’t dare.” 

“Ludlow! . . . If I had only known!” 

“I thought at first that Salmarais was in love with 
you! ” 

“Did you mind?” 

“Abominably.” 

“Then when you knew he wasn’t, why-?” 

He sighed. “Ah, why indeed? When I think of 
the precious time I’ve wasted I could kick myself.” 

“Did you really want me all the time, Ludlow?” 
she whispered. 

“Of course I did. One doesn’t change as easily as 
that. But my confounded pride. . . . Then you 
were so aloof ... so dreadfully the gracious 
hostess. . . .You seemed to shake your money¬ 
bags defiantly at me!” 

Damaris shivered. “Oh, no, no. You were right 
all along and I was wrong, Ludlow. I have regretted 
ever since that I didn’t marry you when you wanted 
me to do so. I could have told Aunt Charlotte after¬ 
wards. That wretched money! It has brought hap¬ 
piness to no one. I’d like to throw it all into the sea.” 

“You mustn’t say that,” he soothed her, seeing 
something of her recent hurt. “What about the 
famous novelist being photographed in the rose- 
garden at Paraded? I’ve looked forward to that for 
months. I shall probably look forward to it for 
years before I become eligible for such celebrity.” 

She clung to him suddenly. “You mean that? 
You like Paraded? You feel that I could make it a 
home for you?” 



GOLDEN DISHES 


345 


“Wherever you are would be home for me/’ he 
answered gravely. “But this is an ideal home. It 
haunted me with its beauty when I went away last 
time. I was not strong enough to stay any longer 
then. Now I am not strong enough to keep away. 
. . . Damaris, when may I come home?” 

“You dear! You dear!” she cried with a sudden 
sob. “I thought that I had failed every one in 
everything.” 

“You?” he said indignantly. “How have you 
failed? Look what you’ve done for your own peo¬ 
ple-” 

“Ah!” she cried, shrinking and hiding her face 
against him. 

He kissed the bent head and went on: “Look at 
all the other people to whom you’ve given a chance. 
You’ve spent less of that wretched money on your¬ 
self than on any one else. It’s high time you had 
some one to look after you.” 

“Then you don’t mind the money any more?” 
sighed Damaris, on a note of relief. 

Tempest reddened. “Not now. My pride and 
my love tugged at each other before, and pride 
always won. I didn’t realize how petty, how despic¬ 
able my attitude was until I saw you there at your 
desk, sobbing your dear heart out. . . .You haven’t 
yet told me what was troubling you, Damaris.” 

“A pin prick, dearest, which your touch has 
healed.” 

“You wouldn’t cry like that for a pin prick.” His 
brows drew together. “Was it anything that Tory 
said? I met her going up the stairs with rather a 
guilty look. It’s not possible-” 

“Forget it. Nothing matters now that I’ve got 




346 


GOLDEN DISHES 


you back again.” She smoothed his frown away. 

A wave of anger rose within Tempest. Could 
Tory really have been so cruel as to tell Damaris 
that she would spoil their trip? Nothing else, he 
knew, would have hurt her generous heart as 
much. 

“When can we start on that belated honeymoon?” 
he asked abruptly. “There are a thousand things 
and places that I want to show you. Let’s get 
married as soon as possible. I’ve got quite a nice 
little nest-egg. I spent next to nothing on my spring 
journey. Then when we come home—sounds good, 
doesn’t it?—the Warings will have flitted and we 
shall have the place to ourselves. You don’t know 
how I resented the thought of Waring taking you 
to all the places that I wanted to show you.” 

“Did you really?” Nothing that he could have 
said would have better soothed her smart. 

“We’ve got to learn each other all over again, 
Damaris.” 

“It will be very pleasant learning.” 

“I don’t know. I’ve got the deuce of a temper 
and you are as obstinate as a mule.” 

Damaris laughed happily. “But we know that 
already. The pleasantness will lie in finding out how 
nice we are. Ludlow . . .” She stopped and 
reddened, then went on with a rush. “Ludlow, 
weren’t you rather attracted by Tory?” 

“Yes,” he answered frankly. “I was quite 
charmed by her and your brother. I don’t like her 
as much as I did, though. She’s a selfish brat, but 
she has the making of a fine enough woman in her 
if she’s properly handled.” 

“Do you think so?” Damaris’s voice chilled a 


GOLDEN DISHES 347 

little in spite of herself. She was still sore from 
her recent encounter. 

“Her father is the only one who can manage her 
at present/’ Tempest continued. “And apparently 
even he isn’t all-powerful. Perhaps—some day— 
young Chris Brooke—but why do we waste time in 
talking of other people when we might be talking 
about ourselves?” 

“Why indeed?” Damaris smiled. “She was far 
too young for you, of course.” 

“Dearest goose!” He bent and kissed her. “Sig- 
norina Vittoria is just the right age for a niece. I 
offered to be an uncle to her the very first time we 
met, long before I realized how near my jest had 
been to real earnest.” 

“Did you? How I wish I had known!” 

“Would it have made any difference?” 

“The greatest. Why, when Tory came to me this 
morning I thought at first-” 

“I’m not going to listen to your absurd fancies,” 
he declared, kissing her heresies to silence. Then, 
for the first time he looked around him. “This is a 
topping room, Damaris. Why haven’t I been here 
before?” 

Damaris flushed rosily with pleasure. “Oh, I’m 
so glad you like it. It’s your room you know.” 

“Mine?” He looked at her in astonishment. 

“Yes. I had always planned it for you. I fur¬ 
nished it for you. I kept it for you, though Roland 
did his best to get it for himself. When—when 
things got jumbled up I thought I would have it 
for my own use. I couldn’t bear to give it to any 
one else. It was yours-” 

“My dearest,” said Tempest huskily. “You make 




348 


GOLDEN DISHES 


me ashamed. You are a thousand times too good 
for me. I ought to be at your feet. Can you ever 
forgive me for my brutal intolerance, my stupid 
pride? All that I made you suffer?” 

“There is no such thing as forgiveness between 
me and thee,” answered Damaris softly. “Let’s 
always try to understand each other. That’s all 
that matters.” 

He took her hand and kissed it. Then he tilted 
her face to his and their lips met in a long kiss of 
that mutual love and understanding at which they 
both aimed. 

The luncheon gong boomed faintly. 

“Heavens!” cried Damaris, “I must wash my 
face before lunch. Ask Benson to keep it back for 
ten minutes, will you?” 

She ran out of the library and fled up the back 
stairs to her own room. 

Hastily she bathed her tear-stained face, now 
radiant in its renewed youth and happiness. She 
brushed her hair and patted it until it framed her 
glowing face becomingly. Then she slipped out of 
her jumper and skirt and into the silver-grey gown 
with its touches of soft fur, drew her turquoise chain 
over her head and ran down the stairs as lightly 
as a girl. 

Ludlow Tempest stood by the fire in the hall, 
waiting. Tory stood near him, talking perfunctorily. 
She looked up apprehensively at the sound of Dam- 
aris’s approach, then turned her face away. Her 
conscience was pricking her badly, inducing un¬ 
wonted nervousness. Her tanned cheeks burned as 
she jerked out disconnected sentences to Tempest. 
He was not listening. A smile lingered about his 


GOLDEN DISHES 


349 


lips as he waited for the sound of an opening door 
upstairs and the patter of feet running back again 
into his life. 

“I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I said,” 
exclaimed Tory resentfully. ... If Mr. Tempus 
didn’t play up how was she to face an aggrieved and 
depressed Damaris throughout the dreary ordeal 
of luncheon? 

“Not a word!” answered Tempest unashamed. 

“But why?” 

He took no notice of her question. 

“Damaris is coming,” he said inconsequently. 

He turned away from the fire and went to meet the 
woman of his heart, half proud, wholly angry with 
himself for his bygone folly. 

“How quick you were, and how beautiful you 
look!” he murmured, as he took her hands in his. 

Tory, hearing the whispering but not the words, 
resented the suggestion of intimacy. She turned 
reluctantly round, loth to face Damaris. The mem¬ 
ory of her face as she had last seen it lingered with 
her uncomfortably. She had no desire to see it 
again. Her eyes were bent on the floor as she went 
slowly forward. Then, as she became aware of the 
silver-grey gown, they shot swiftly upwards. 

“Damaris!” she gasped, astounded at the trans¬ 
formation. 

Never had she seen Damaris look as she did now, 
youth-infused, radiant. Gone was the pale, stricken 
creature whom she had left crouching in her chair in 
the library. A beautiful woman confronted her, 
young, glowing, happy. 

Ludlow slipped his arm round Damaris and drew 
her forward. 


350 


GOLDEN DISHES 


“The Signorina Vittoria will doubtless remember 
that on the first occasion we met I offered to be an 
uncle to her,” he said gaily. “I have now the honour 
to inform her that I shall shortly turn that jest 
into earnest. As soon as Damaris will let me, in 
fact.” 

Tory’s face grew suffused. “You—you—mean— 

you and—and Damaris-?” she stammered and 

stopped. 

“I mean that Damaris has been gracious enough 
to forgive my many shortcomings,” he returned 
gravely. “And has promised, for the second time, 
to marry me.” 

“The—the second time?” faltered Tory, biting 
her lip. 

“Yes. We were stupid enough to fall out before, 
but I hope and believe that it was for the first and 
last time,” answered Tempest. 

Tory stood silent for a moment, her mind in a 
whirl. 

This, then, was what Damaris had meant when she 
spoke of throwing away her happiness for their 
sakes. She had done some stupid quixotic thing, 
and then talked of sacrifice. ... Or perhaps it was 
Ludlow Tempest who had done the quixotic thing 
and tried to keep Damaris out of her great-aunt’s 
money. It would have been just like him. He 
despised money as she and Nutkin did. . . . But 
Damaris ... he and Damaris . . . ? It was 
impossible, incredible! . . .Yet the incredible had 
a way of happening at times. It certainly seemed to 
have happened now, she told herself, as with con¬ 
fused thoughts racing through her mind she met the 
gaze of two pairs of eyes: Tempest’s kindly, quiz- 



GOLDEN DISHES 351 

zical, triumphant, Damaris’s searching, apprehen¬ 
sive and—was it appealing? 

“I suppose I must congratulate you both,” she 
said at last, rather awkwardly. 

“On the principle that there’s no fool like an old 
fool,” said Tempest, smiling. “Dear infant, you’ll 
have to educate your sense of proportion. When 
all’s said and done, Damaris and I are only in the 
early thirties, which is quite youthful nowadays.” 

“You’re old enough to know your own minds, 
anyhow,” said Tory, with a return to normality. 

Damaris smiled as a long-suffering Benson came 
out into the hall, gong-stick in hand. 

“You needn’t ring, Benson,” she said. “We’re 
going in.” She slipped one hand through Tempest’s 
arm and held out the other to Tory. “Come, Tory,” 
she said softly. 

With an effort Tory took the outstretched hand 
and squeezed it. 

They all went in to luncheon together, followed by 
the benediction of Benson’s astonished smile. 


The End 




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